Understanding population differentiation using geographical, morphological and genetic characterization in Erodium cicunium

Xingxing Si; Lei Gao; Yuwei Song; Majid Khayatnezhad; Amir Abbas Minaeifar

Xingxing Si Department of Life Science and Biotechnology, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang 473000, China
Lei Gao Department of Life Science and Biotechnology, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang 473000, China
Yuwei Song Department of Life Science and Biotechnology, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang 473000, China
Majid Khayatnezhad Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Ardabil Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil, Iran
Amir Abbas Minaeifar Department of Biology, Payame Noor University, P.O. Box 19395-3697, Tehran, Iran

Keywords: Erodium cicunium, gene flow, genetic differentiation, SCoT

Abstract

Erodium cicunium (Geranaiceae) species are distributed in different habitats of Iran. Some species are of medicinal importance while some are well known weeds and used as forage plants. An investigation was carried out to evaluate 124 randomly collected plants of E. cicunium from 15 geographical populations in 5 provinces to study population structure and for morphological and molecular characters. Start Codon Targeted (SCoT) markers were used to analyse molecular diversity. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed significant genetic difference among the studied populations and also revealed that 60% of total genetic variability was due to within population diversity while, 40% genetic differentiation was recorded among population. Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) of populations based on morphological characters was not in agreement with Metric Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) plot of molecular data.