AEGILOPS L. GENETIC DIVERSITY IN SOUTHWESTERN REGION OF UZBEKISTAN

As wheat donors, wild species of the genus Aegilops L. play a vital role in practical breeding to improve wheat production because of their strong relationship and wide genetic diversity. Using nine simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers helped assess the genetic diversity in 96 collected samples of four species belonging to the genus Aegilops, i.e., Aegilops tauschii Coss (D), Ae. cylindrica Host (CD), Ae. crassa Boiss (DDM), and Ae. triuncialis L. (UC). The said collection came from 21 sites of various expeditions located in three regions of Southwestern Uzbekistan (Samarkand, Urgut, Kitab, and Shakhrisabz regions). Generally, 102 distinct alleles were found, with an average of 11.33 alleles per primer. The total number of species-specific amplicons was 35. The polymorphism detected varied from 28.6% (for the WSP107 primer) to 77.0% (for the WSP130 and WSP192 primers). The mean values of polymorphism information content (PIC) and expected heterozygosity (Ho) for all samples were 0.675 and 0.527, respectively. Based on nine SSR markers, on average, the genetic distance indices (GD) varied from 0.63 to 0.77. The highest genetic similarity (GD = 0.77) recorded occurred between the species Ae. crassa and Ae. cylindrica, whereas the least (GD = 0.48), between Ae. cylindrica and Ae. triuncialis with their taxonomic classification. Genus Aegilops samples from the same region often attain an identical subgrouping, which might be due to relatedness by genetic parameters. The gene pool of native species of the genus Aegilops from the Southwestern region of Uzbekistan may provide suitable alleles for wheat improvement and adaptation in the future.