Microsatellite (SSR) markers were employed to investigate the genetic diversity within a collection of durum wheat germplasm. A total of 41 landraces originating from geographically diverse regions—including Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, Ethiopia, China, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia—were initially genotyped using 27 SSR markers selected to represent the whole genome. Of these, 7 markers failed to produce amplification products despite repeated attempts; therefore, 20 SSR markers were retained for further analysis. Among these, 17 loci were polymorphic and 3 were monomorphic. Analysis of the 17 polymorphic loci revealed a total of 67 alleles, with allele numbers per locus ranging from two to seven and an average of 3.94 alleles per locus. The polymorphic information content (PIC) values varied from 0.071 (Xgwm371) to 0.647 (Xgwm120), indicating differences in marker informativeness. Cluster analysis grouped the landraces into four genetically distinct clusters, demonstrating a clear relationship between genetic variation and geographic origin. In general, landraces from Africa and Western Asia exhibited higher genetic diversity compared to those from Central and East Asia. These results highlight Western Asia, Africa, and particularly southeastern Turkey as important centers of genetic diversity for durum wheat.
Six durum and twelve bread wheat genotypes were evaluated under favorable and drought-stressed field conditions, and screened with thirty simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers. The traits studied were stomata frequency (STF), relative water content (RWC), flag leaf area (FLA), flag leaf weight (FLW), flag leaf dry matter content (FLD), chlorophyll a content (Chl.a), chlorophyll b content (Chl.b), grain yield/plant (GYP) and 1000-kerenl weight (TKW). Highly significant differences were observed among wheat genotypes for all the traits, indicating considerable genetic variation. Moderate to high broad-sense heritability estimates were observed for the studied traits. Under drought stress, GYP was positively correlated with RWC, FLA, FLW and TKW, whereas negatively correlated with STF. G3 (Svevo) and G6 (WK-12-1) were the most drought-tolerant durum wheat, whereas G11 (L.S-15) and G16 (SIDS-1) were the most drought-tolerant bread wheat genotypes. SSR markers analysis indicated considerable genetic variation between and within durum and bread wheat genotypes. The percentage of polymorphism ranged from 14.3% (Xgwm174-5D) to 100% (Xgwm294-2A and Xgwm573-7B), with an average of 61.4%. The polymorphism information content (PIC) ranged from 0.20 (Xwmc596-7A) to 0.48 (Xgwm294-2A), with an average of 0.33.The highest polymorphism (77.1%) was observed in the B genome followed by A (57.8%) and D (50.0%) genomes. Cluster analysis based on phenotypic data distinguished the most drought-tolerant genotypes (G6 and G11) from the remaining genotypes. Cluster analysis based on SSR markers distinguished durum from bread wheat genotypes. The study indicated that phenotypic data and SSR markers were effective in assessing the genetic diversity in the studied genotypes.
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