Genetic relationships among fruit cultivars and host plants of Indian lac insect in ber (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Ziziphus mauritiana </i>Lam.) revealed by RAPD and ISSR markers
170-177The genetic relationship among 26 fruit
cultivars of Zizizphus mauritiana Lam.
(ber), 6 high resin-yielding lac insect hosts of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">Z. mauritiana and 2 other Ziziphus
spp. used as lac hosts was compared using random amplified polymorphic DNA
(RAPD) and inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers with an aim to identify
genetically similar cultivars for utilization in fruit as well as in lac
production. RAPD (15) and ISSR primers (11) employed in the study revealed
98.82 and 98.86% polymorphisms, respectively among all the ber accessions used.
The study revealed that 11 fruit cultivars had >50% genetic similarity with
6 high-yielding lac host genotypes. The UPGMA dendrogram and principal
coordinate analysis clustered
11 fruit cultivars and the lac hosts within same cluster. The AMOVA analysis
revealed very low genetic variations among the groups of fruit cultivars and
high-yielding lac hosts, but high genetic variations within accessions of the
groups. The results suggest that 11 ber cultivars may be useful not only as a
source for fruit harvesting but also as potential high-yielding lac host
plants, thus providing lac growers with more options of economic returns than
the wild-type hosts presently used