RAPD polymorphism of wild emmer wheat populations, Triticum dicoccoides, in Israel

Genetic diversity in random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs) was studied in 110 genotypes of the tetraploid wild progenitor of wheat, Triticum dicoc coides, from 11 populations sampled in Israel and Turkey. Our results show high level of diversity of RAPD markers in wild wheat populations in Israel . The ten primers used in this study amplified 59 scorable RAPD loci of whi ch 48 (81.4%) were polymorphic and 11 monomorphic. RAPD analysis was found to be highly effective in distinguishing genotypes of T, dicocioides origin ating from diverse ecogeographical sites: in Israel and Turkey, with 95.5% of the 100 genotypes correctly classified into sites of origin by discrimin ant analysis based on RAPD genotyping. However, interpopulation genetic dis tances showed no association with geographic distance between the populatio n sites of origin, negating a simple isolation by distance model. Spatial a utocorrelation of RAPD frequencies suggests that migration is not influenti al. Our present RAPD results are non-random and in agreement with the previ ously obtained allozyme patterns, although the genetic diversity values obt ained with RAPDs are much higher than the allozyme values. Significant corr elates of RAPD markers with various climatic and soil factors suggest that, as in the case of allozymes, natural selection causes adaptive RAPD ecogeo graphical differentiation. The results obtained suggest that RAPD markers a re useful for the estimation of genetic diversity in wild material of T. di coccoides and the identification of suitable parents for the development of mapping populations for the tagging of agronomically important traits deri ved from T. dicoccoides.