Articles
Morphological and molecular diversity estimation in wild and cultivated pomegranate germplasm of Pakistan
Article number
1297_51
Pages
385 – 394
Language
English
Abstract
Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), is an important fruit for its nutritional, medicinal and pharmaceutical properties.
It is still a minor fruit in most parts of the world for its restricted growth and various production and fruit quality issues including germplasm conservation.
Objective of this study was to evaluate genetic diversity regarding qualitative and quantitative fruit characters of wild and cultivated pomegranate accessions, along with molecular diversity estimation in amplification with simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers.
There was high level of diversity for fruit and aril; weight, shape, color and size, aril taste, seed hardness and wood portion index (WPI) with 92.4% of diversity covered in first five principle components (PCs). Principle component analysis (PCA) of quantitative data declared domesticated accessions as more diverse than wild with 83.8 and 86.6% variability explained in first 6 components, respectively.
Wild and domesticated accessions were clustered in separate classes with 33.7 and 66.3% variability within and between regions, respectively regardless of their growing regions.
Some domesticated accessions of Bahawalpur, D.G. Khan and Chakwal grouped with wild accessions with 18.3% variability for morphological traits and declared as semi wild in nature.
Polymorphic information contents (PIC) values proved broad genetic base of collected pomegranate accessions, however, wild accessions showed more diverse genetic makeup in DNA based studies.
It is still a minor fruit in most parts of the world for its restricted growth and various production and fruit quality issues including germplasm conservation.
Objective of this study was to evaluate genetic diversity regarding qualitative and quantitative fruit characters of wild and cultivated pomegranate accessions, along with molecular diversity estimation in amplification with simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers.
There was high level of diversity for fruit and aril; weight, shape, color and size, aril taste, seed hardness and wood portion index (WPI) with 92.4% of diversity covered in first five principle components (PCs). Principle component analysis (PCA) of quantitative data declared domesticated accessions as more diverse than wild with 83.8 and 86.6% variability explained in first 6 components, respectively.
Wild and domesticated accessions were clustered in separate classes with 33.7 and 66.3% variability within and between regions, respectively regardless of their growing regions.
Some domesticated accessions of Bahawalpur, D.G. Khan and Chakwal grouped with wild accessions with 18.3% variability for morphological traits and declared as semi wild in nature.
Polymorphic information contents (PIC) values proved broad genetic base of collected pomegranate accessions, however, wild accessions showed more diverse genetic makeup in DNA based studies.
Authors
M. Nafees, I. Ahmad, S. Hussain, M. Ishtiaq, M. Azam, R. Anwar, R. Hussain, M.R. Shaheen, M.J. Jaskani
Keywords
pomegranate germplasm, qualitative traits, quantitative characters, multivariate analysis, diversity estimation
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