Koohdar F.¹ , Sheidai M.¹ , Attar F.² , Talebi Seyed-Mehdi .³

1.Faculty of Biological Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2.Central Herbarium of University of Tehran, School of Biology, University College of Science, University of Tehran, P.O. Box: 14155-6455, Tehran, Iran
3.Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Arak University, Arak, Iran
Author    Correspondence author
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2015, Vol. 6, No. 19   doi: 10.5376/mpb.2015.06.0019
Received: 10 Aug., 2015    Accepted: 14 Oct., 2015    Published: 30 Oct., 2015

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Koohdar F., Sheidai M., Attar F., Talebi Seyed-Mehdi., 2015, Population genetic structure and genetic diversity in Dracocephalum thymiflorum L. (Lamiaceae) populations in Iran, Interaction, Molecular Plant Breeding, 6(15): 1-7 (doi: 10.5376/mpb.2015.06.0015)

Dracocephalum thymiflorum L. is a medicinal plant that grows in limited areas in Iran and forms few local populations. We have no information on its genetic diversity and population genetic structure in the country. Therefore, the present population genetic study was performed to provide data on population genetic structure, potential gene pools and gene flow in Dracocephalum thymiflorum in Iran. The information obtained can be used in conservation of this medicinal plant species. We studied 55 randomly selected plants from 5 geographical populations by ISSR molecular markers. The studied populations contained high within-population genetic variability and also revealed strong genetic differentiation by AMOVA test (P = 0.01). Structure analysis and K-Means clustering revealed population genetic fragmentation that was mainly due to genetic difference between population 2 and the other studied populations. The population assignment test revealed the occurrence of limited gene flow among these populations. The information obtained can me used in programming the conservation of this important medicinal plant in Iran.

AMOVA; Dracocephalum thymiflorum; genetic drift; gene flow; Genetic fragmentation