DISTINCTNESS AND INTER RELATIONSHIPS OF PISTACIA L. SPECIES IN IRAN AS EVIDENCED BY RETROELEMENT INSERTIONAL POLYMORPHISMS (IRAP METHOD)

This study concerns taxonomic status and the distinctness of Pistacia taxa occurring in Iran. Regarding different taxonomic treatments based only on the leaf morphological traits in this study IRAP marker was sued in order to evaluate relationships and distinctness among the putative Pistacia taxa in Iran. A number of 16 geographical and morphological representative OTUs out of 383 collected and herbarium samples were subjected both to IRAP study and root-tip chromosome counting. The resulted data were analyzed using both phonetics and cladistics methods. Based on the results of this study and also literature review we concluded and suggested that the genus Pistacia in this country includes three cytodemes resulted from aneuploidy. These are to be justified based on the taxonomic concept of species.