Medicago ciliaris (L.) Krock and Medicago intertexta (L.) Mill are most often found in saline regions and are considered as potential resources for genes related to salinity resistance. To explore the genetic diversity of these two species by mean of nrSSR (simplesequence repeats) markers, 11 accessions originated from different regions in north of Africa and Middle East were chosen. Ten among 14 markers turned out to be polymorphic and gave 72 alleles. Eight markers were very informative with PIC values > , and three of them were found to be nonneutral. Allelic richness was limited with an average number of alleles per locus of . All populations have a significant heterozygous deficit evidenced by both observed heterozygosity rates (null for most populations) and multilocus fixation index estimates. |
