Wild Emmer (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides) Diversity in Southern Turkey: Evaluation of SSR and Morphological Variations

OpenAlex İngilizce

Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides) is the ancestral species of cultivated tetraploid wheat with BBAA genomes. Because of its full interfertility with domesticated emmer wheat, this wild species can serve as one of the most important genetic resources to improve durum and bread wheat. To clarify the magnitude of genetic diversity between and within populations of Turkish wild emmer wheat, 169 genotypes of ssp. dicoccoides selected from the 38 populations collected from the three sub-regions (East-1, West-1, and West-2) of the Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey were molecularly and morphologically characterized. The populations showed significant variation in plant height, heading date, flag leaf area, spike length and number, spikelet, peduncle, lemma, palea, glume and anther lengths, glume hull thickness, anther width, and days to maturity. According to the results of nuclear-SSR analysis, the populations collected from the sub-regions East-1 and West-2 were the most genetically distant (0.539), while the populations collected from the sub-regions West-1 and West-2 were the most genetically similar (0.788) populations. According to the results of AMOVA, there was 84% similarity within the populations studied, while the variation between the populations of the three sub-regions was 16%. In the dendrogram obtained by using nuclear-SSR data, the populations formed two main groups. The populations from the sub-region East-1 were in the first group, and the populations from the sub-regions West-1 and West-2 were in the second group. From the dendrogram, it appears that the populations from the sub-region East-1 were genetically distant from the populations from the sub-regions West-1 and West-2. The results highlight the potential diversity in Southeast Anatolia for wild emmer discovery and utilization.