Abstract

One hundred twenty individual samples belonging to three Casuarina (C. junghuhniana C. glauca and C. equisetifolia) and two Allocasuarina species (A. huegeliana and A. littoralis) grown in a species trial garden at Panampally Research Station, Kerala, India were studied for genetic diversity estimation. Seven ISSR primers targeting 2 or 3 nucleotide repeats anchored at 3’ or 5’ end were used and 241 polymorphic amplicons were scored. The size of the amplification products ranged from 220-1710 bp. Among the genera studied, percent polymorphism were 40.6% and 23.1% in Casuarina and Allocasuarina respectively. At species level, the highest percent polymorphic loci was observed in C. equisetifolia (18.6%) while the lowest was registered in A. littoralis (4.8%). Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed that a large proportion of genetic variation (92.36%) resided among species, while only 8.64 per cent resided among individuals within species. The estimation of genetic diversity will be an important tool in Casuarina hybridization program.

Keywords: Allocasuarina, Casuarina, Inter Simple Sequence Repeats, genetic diversity