Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica. Section B, Soil and Plant Science (Jul 2021)

Genetic diversity of Eragrostis tef accessions collected from acid soil-affected areas and cross-amplification of SSR markers linked to Al-toxicity tolerance in cereals

  • Ermias Abate,
  • Hussein Shimelis,
  • Assefa Amelework,
  • Fentahun Mengistu,
  • Mark Laing

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/09064710.2021.1897156
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 71, no. 5
pp. 324 – 335

Abstract

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The aim of this study was to assess the extent of genetic diversity among and within tef populations collected from acid-affected soils in Ethiopia, and to test the cross-amplification of markers linked to Al-toxicity tolerance in other cereals. Forty-two tef genotypes were studied using 33 highly polymorphic SSRs. About 55% of the amplified putative alleles were effective in discriminating the genotypes. The mean PIC value was 0.66, suggesting that the majority of the markers had high discriminatory power. The population structure analysis revealed the presence of two genetically distinct populations and clearly distinguished landraces from the rest. A significant difference in genetic diversity parameters was observed between the two inferred populations. The landraces consistently had higher values for all of the diversity parameters and had contrastingly a higher value of private alleles. The AMOVA showed highly significant (P = 0.001) genetic variation among tef populations and among genotypes, with variance contribution of 17% and 67%, respectively. Eighty-two percent of the Al-toxicity tolerance markers amplified 84 alleles. This finding suggests the possibility of in-situ preservation of rare alleles that may confer acid tolerance through the improvement of available landraces in acid affected soils. Thus, urgent efforts are needed to collect accessions from areas with acid-affected soils.

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