Genetic Diversity of Salvia santolinifolia Boiss Ecotypes Growing in Hormozgan Province Using Morphological Traits

Salvia santolinifolia Boiss. is a perennial and aromatic plant which belongs to Lamiaceae family and grows wild in south of Iran. It is used indigenously for various purposes including hemorrhoid, hypertension, anti-inflammatory and anti-diarrhea treatments. Due to the drought stress of recent years and the limited spread as well as extensive harvesting of S. santolinifolia from natural habitats, conservation of its germplasm is too important. In current study, genetic diversity of some wild populations of S. santolinifolia grown in Hormozgan province was studied based on morphological markers for use in breeding programs and potential assessment of this plant in natural environment.

In order to study the diversity of morphological and functional traits of different ecotypes in Hormozgan province, 120 genotypes belong to four ecotypes (including Abmah, GhotbAbad, Dorahi-Meymand and Sirmand) were collected in a nested design at flowering stage in winter and spring of 2018. 20 vegetative and reproductive characteristics such as plant height, plant width, leaf length, leaf width, branch number, number of flowering branches and inflorescence length were investigated. Data were analyzed using SAS, R and SPSS softwares. For cluster analysis, the cluster analysis was performed by input method and factor analysis was done using the Variomax rotation method.

The results of variance analysis showed that significant differences (p≤0.01, 0.05) were found among the studied S. santolinifolia ecotypes for studied traits. Some morphological characteristics such as plant height, diameter of canopy, branch number, subdivision number, leaf length, leaf width and inflorescence length were significant at 1% probability level. The main stem diameter was significantly different at the 5% probability level. Genetic diversity indices such as Margalef, Shannon-Weiner and Simpson for estimating diversity within ecotypes in S. santolinifolia revealed that all four ecotypes had high diversity within ecotypes. The branch number (58.25%). diameter of canopy (50.11%), number of flowering branches (49.64%), dried weight (48.54%) and fresh weight (47.43%) had the highest diversity among studied ecotypes. The highest plant height was in Sirmand ecotype, the highest diameter of canopy and branch number were in GhobAbad ecotype, the highest leaf length and leaf width were showed in Sirmand and GhobAbad ecotypes and finally, the highest inflorescence length was in Dorahi-Meymand ecotype. The correlation coefficients between evaluated traits showed significant positive and negative correlations between some important traits. PCA analysis results demonstrated that studied characteristics divided in 6 groups which justified 68.44% of the total variance. Cluster analysis divided the four ecotypes into two independent groups. The two ecotypes of Abmah and Qotbabad were in one group, while Sirmand and Meimand ecotypes were in another group.

The findings of this study showed that there is high morphological diversity among the wild growing S. santolinifolia ecotypes in Hormozgan province which can be very valuable for use in breeding programs in order to create high quality and desirable food industries and the medicine was used.