RAPD ANALYSIS OF GENETIC VARIATION IN NATURAL POPULATIONS OF AEGILOPS SP. FROM SOUTH ADRIATIC

New challenges that food production is facing, requires novel approach in agricultural strategy. The scissors of growing demand for food and the limits of the Earth's resources are forcing plant breeders to run for the new borders, utilizing all the available genetic variation in order to create fruitful and economically sound cultivars. Aegilops sp. (Poaceae) is a potential source of genetic variation for wheat improvement. RAPD marker analysis was used in order to distinguish and evaluate different genotypes of Aegilops sp. population samples from the collection gathered during few years’ expeditions in South Adriatic, along the coastal, littoral and the inland parts of Montenegro. Ten randomly amplified polymorphic DNA markers (RAPDs) were tested: OPA-05, OPA-08, OPB-06, OPA-02, OPA-07, OPA-25, OPB-07, OPB-18, OPC-06, OPC-10 to examine genetic structuring on 18 samples of 6 populations of different Aegilops sp. According to global AMOVA, 75% of total gene diversity was attributable mostly to diversity within population (ΦPT =0.205 p=0.001), indicating that the groups of studied goat grass populations were seemingly to differing genetically. In contrast, 25% of the variation came from variation among populations. According to PCoA, the distribution of 18 goat grass accessions by Principal Coordinate Analysis shows 3 distinct groups. PCo axis 1, PCo axis 2, and PCo axis 3 account for 20.8%, 18.2% and 14.1% of the variation, respectively. The results showed that RAPD markers could be a convenient tool for investigating genetic variation and for detecting genetic structuring of populations. Genetic variability formed under natural selection was entrenched.