Bulbous plants play an important role in Turkey’s biodiversity due to their great potential use in various industries. Sea daffodils (Pancratium maritimum), one aspect of Turkey’s biological richness, represent an important bulbous plant that generally spreads on sand dunes and can be seen only on the Mediterranean coast and on its certain beaches in our country. | Turkish Journal of Botany Turk J Bot (2017) 41: 569-578 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article Genetic diversity and molecular characterization of natural Pancratium maritimum L. populations by DNA markers 1 2, Ceren ELİBOL , Behiye Banu BİLGEN * Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey 2 Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Namık Kemal University, Tekirdağ, TURKEY 1 Received: Accepted/Published Online: Final Version: Abstract: Bulbous plants play an important role in Turkey’s biodiversity due to their great potential use in various industries. Sea daffodils (Pancratium maritimum), one aspect of Turkey’s biological richness, represent an important bulbous plant that generally spreads on sand dunes and can be seen only on the Mediterranean coast and on its certain beaches in our country. In this study, the genetic structure and genetic diversity of four natural P. maritimum populations have been determined by RAPD and nrSSR primers. Eight RAPD and four nrSSR loci were analyzed. All RAPD and nrSSR loci, except SSR-20, were found to be polymorphic. Genetic diversity parameters such as mean number of alleles for each nrSSR loci (Na = ), effective allele number (Ne = ), Shannon’s information index (I = ), observed heterozygosity (Ho = ) and expected heterozygosity (He = ) were calculated. A rather high proportion of the genetic diversity (81% for nrSSR, 72% for RAPD) was due to within-population variation and the remaining part was due to variation between populations. According to the acquired UPGMA phenogram for RAPD and nrSSR data, the İğneada and Çamlıkoy populations, which are geographically close, are also genetically the most similar populations. The STRUCTURE analysis results supported the constructed UPGMA phenogram for the studied sea .
