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Keywords
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Genetic diversity, Gene flow, Genetic stratification, Population structure, Senecio glaucus
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Abstract
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Senecio glaucus L. is of wide-range occurrence such as Canary Islands, Western and Middle Asia, Caucasus, China, India, Pakistan, and Europe, and is known to show antibacterial properties. Extract of S. glaucus serves as a reducing and stabilizing agent for synthesizing silver nanoparticles. At present no investigation has been
reported about population genetic structure of this plant species in Iran. Therefore, we studied the genetic diversity, population structure and morphological variability of 105 specimens from 13 geographical populations of S. glaucus by using ISSR molecular markers for the first time. AMOVA and Gst analyses revealed significant molecular differences among the studied populations. Mantel test showed significant correlation between genetic distance and geographical distance in the studied populations. Reticulation analysis revealed that, gene flow occurred among most of the studied populations. STRUCTURE analysis revealed populations’ genetic stratification. Consensus tree of the morphological and genetic trees obtained revealed that some of the studied populations differed from the others in their genetic and morphological features. The results suggested that population fragmentation, restricted gene flow, genetic drift and local adaptation have played an important role in diversification of S. glaucus.
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