Genetics and Molecular Biology (Jun 2023)

Genetic diversity of Moroccan date palm revealed by microsatellite markers

  • Siham Khoulassa,
  • Haris Khurshid,
  • Mohamed Fokar,
  • Hicham Eliddrissy,
  • Youssef Outeha,
  • Jamal Elfadil,
  • Adil Essarioui,
  • Mohamed Benlyas,
  • Rachid Mentag,
  • Benaissa Elmoualij

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-4685-gmb-2022-0021
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 46, no. 2

Abstract

Read online Read online

Abstract The genetic diversity between 23 Moroccan date palm cultivars collected from the National Palm Collection at the INRA (National Agricultural Research Institute) experimental field in Zagora was assessed using SSR markers that are specifically designed for date palm. Among the 16 tested SSR, 13 were successfully amplified, and were selected to carry out this study. 208 bands were amplified, ranging from 10 to 25 bands per cultivar with an average of 16 alleles per cultivar. The value of heterozygosity of the studied markers ranged from 0.11 to 0.30. The pairwise genetic distances between those cultivars ranged from 0.06 to 0.46. The hierarchical cluster analysis distributed the 23 genotypes into four different groups of one to ten cultivars.

Keywords