Genetic assessment of maize landraces from former Yugoslavia

Abstract

A collection of 2217 landraces from former Yugoslavia region is maintained at Maize Research Institute Zemun Polje gene bank. All local varieties from the former Yugoslavia are classified into 18 groups. These agroecological groups encompass early introduced flint types grown on small and isolated areas, later introduced dent types that spread on wide areas of crop production and types created through hybridization between these two kernel types. The objective of this research was to study population structure, genetic diversity and relationships of nine flint and nine dent accessions belonging to different agro-ecological groups using phenotypic and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The 18 analyzed landraces displayed great variation for most analyzed traits, but flint landraces were more diverse. Ten SSR probes revealed total of 56 and 62 alleles in flint and dent landraces, respectively. Eight specific alleles (i.e. alleles found only in one landrace or only within flint, i.e. dent landraces) were detected with five probes. One specific allele was found in flint and seven alleles in dent landraces. These differences in allele structure point to different origins and possibly different purposes of flint and dent genotypes. Both phenotypic and SSR analyses could distinguish most flint and dent landraces, but not agro-ecological groups. The results revealed a significant genetic heterogeneity indicating that the analyzed landraces could be valuable sources of genetic variability.

Kolekcija od 2217 lokalnih populacija sa teritorija Jugoslavije se održava u banci gena Instituta za kukuruz Zemun Polje. Populacije su klasifikovane u 18 agro-ekoloških grupa, koje obuhvataju rano introdikovane tipove tvrdunaca, kasnije inrodukovane tipove zubana i tipove nastale njihovom hibridizacijom. Cilj ovog rada je bio da se utvrdi struktura i genetička divergentnost, pomoću fenotipskih i SSR markera, devet populacija tvrdunaca i devet populacija zubana koji pripadaju različitim agro-ekološkim grupama. Analizirane populacije su pokazale visok stepen varijacija za većinu analiziranih osobina, mada su populacije tvrdunaca bile raznovrsnije. Ukupno 56 alela je detektovano u populacijama tvrdunaca, odnosno 64 u populacijama zubana, pomoću deset SSR markera. Osam specifičnih alela (alela detektovanih samo medu tvrduncima, odnosno zubanima) je identifikovano pomoću pet proba - jedan alel medu tvrduncima i sedam medu zubanima. Ove razlike u alelnoj strukturi ukazuju na razlicito poreklo i različite namene genotipova tvrdunaca i zubana. Fenotipska i SSR analiza su mogle da razdvoje većinu tvrdunaca od zubana, ali ne i agro-ekološke grupe. Rezultati su pokazali značajnu genetičku heterogenost analiziranih populacija, koja bi mogla biti dragocen izvor genetičke varijabilnosti.