Understanding population differentiation using geographical, morphological and genetic characterization in Erodium cicunium

Abstract

Erodium cicunium (Geraniaceae) species are distributed in different habitats of Iran. Some species are of medicinal importance while some are well known weeds and used as forage plants. An investigation was carried out to evaluate 124 randomly collected plants of E. cicunium from 15 geographical populations in 5 provinces to study population structure and for morphological and molecular characters. Start Codon Targeted (SCoT) markers were used to analyse molecular diversity. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed significant genetic difference among the studied populations and also revealed that 60% of total genetic variability was due to within population diversity, while 40% genetic differentiation was recorded among populations. Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) of populations based on morphological characters was not in agreement with Metric Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) plot of molecular data.