Genetic diversity ofPoa pratensisL. depending on geographical origin and compared with genetic markers

Abstract

BackgroundPoa pratensisis one of the most common species of meadow grass in Europe. Most cultivars of the species found in Poland were originally derived from its ecotypes. We compared the effectiveness of the RAPD and ISSR methods in assessing the genetic diversity of the selected populations ofP. pratensis. We examined whether these methods could be useful for detecting a possible link between the geographical origin of a given population and its assessed genetic variation.MethodsThe molecular markers RAPD and ISSR were used and their efficiency compared using, inter alia, statistical multivariate methods (UPGMA and PCA).ResultsThe low value of Dice’s coefficient (0.369) along with the significantly high percentage of polymorphic products indicates a substantial degree of genetic diversity among the studied populations. Our results found a correlation between the geographical origin of the studied populations and their genetic variations. For ISSR, which proved to be the more effective method in that respect, we selected primers with the greatest differentiating powers correlating to geographical origin.DiscussionThe populations evaluated in this study were characterized by a high genetic diversity. This seems to confirm the hypothesis that ecotypes ofP. pratensisoriginating from different regions of Central Europe with different terrain structures and habitat conditions can be a source of great genetic variability.