Evaluation of genetic diversity of some Iranian species in the genus Tulipa L. using CDDP molecular marker

The genus Tulipa belongs to the Liliaceae family and is one of the most important ornamental bulbous plants, which has been cultivated all over the world to produce cut flowers, potted plants and use for landscaping. In this study, the genetic diversity of 46 accessions belonging to 9 species of Tulipa was investigated using 19 CDDP primers. A total of 265 bands were amplified, all of which were polymorphic. The average number of amplified bands per primer was 13.9. Primer 5 (ABP1-1) with the best marker parameters was introduced as the best primer for investigating genetic diversity in this study. Calculation of genetic diversity parameters showed the greatest diversity among T. systola species. Results of analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed that within species diversity (77%) was higher than between species diversity (23%). Evaluation of distance matrix based on the Dice similarity coefficient of the studied Tulipa species showed that the highest and the lowest distance were related to T. armena and T. clusiana (0.684) and T. systola and T. schrenkii (0.226), respectively. Due to the higher contribution of within species variance than to between species, grouping of the species based on cluster analysis did not fully correspond to those in the principal coordinate analysis. However, different accessions belonging to T. micheliana, T. lehmanniana, and T. clusiana were well separated. The present study showed that the remarkable efficacy of the CDDP marker  in relation to the genus Tulipa requires a comprehensive study of the genetic diversity of this genus in different distribution points of Iran.