Assessment of genetic diversity in Achillea millefolium accessions from Iran using ISSR marker

Thirty-seven accessions of Achillea millefolium collected from provinces in Iran, were analyzed using inter-simple -sequence -repeat (ISSR) markers to evaluate their variability. A total of seven ISSR primers generated 72 amplified fragments, most of which were polymorphic. The Jaccard similarity indices, as based on the ISSR profiles, were subjected to a complete linkage analysis, and the dendrogram revealed six groups. The results of the clustering showed that A. millefolium subspecies elbursensis (endemic to Northern Iran) is separated from other genotypes in the dendrogram. The Principle Component Analysis (PCA) confirmed the results of the clustering. To study the morphological and phonological traits of these plants, we cultivated them in a randomized complete block design with three replications, and these traits were measured during the early stage of flowering. The analysis of variance showed that all of the measured traits have variation among these plants. The objective of the present study was the identification of the genetic diversity among A. millefolium genotypes using ISSR markers and selected morphological and phonological traits. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.