Abstract

Niger (Guzoita abyssinica) is traditionally very important in the production of oil and as an oilseed crop in Ethiopia. The level of Niger genetic diversity is not studied at molecular level particularly with microsatellite markers which are cost effective, informative and co-dominant. In this study, contrasting samples of 65 Ethiopian Niger germplasm accessions collected from diversified eco-geographic regions were studied with eleven polymorphic EST derived SSR markers. Based on dissimilarity matrix ranging from 0.056 to 0.75, the accessions were grouped into three major and six sub clusters, showing the wealth of genetic diversity for exploitation in future breeding programs. The EST derived SSR markers used in this study also revealed high polymorphic information content (PIC) ranging from 0.2624 to 0.3677, the average being 0.3308 which indicate the usefulness of the primers in Niger germplasm characterization in the future by providing basic breeding information for breeders. The mean number of major allele frequency, gene diversity and heterozygosity using power marker v3.25, showed a value of 0.69, 0.42 and 0.50, respectively. The number of private alleles using GenAlEx 6.41 is 66 alleles with mean of 9 alleles per locus. Thus, utilizing EST SSR marker for diversity study lays basic foundation to understand the genetic distance of crop verities and greatly contributes for further improvement and preservation.

Key words: Alleles, dendrogram, diversity, EST-SSR markers, heterozygosity, locus, Niger and polymorphic information content (PIC).