Genetic Diversity and population structure of Selected tef Core Germplasm Lines Based on Microsatellite Markers

Abstract Tef is an indigenous and important food, feed and cash crop to the small-holder Ethiopian farmers. Knowledge of the natural genetic composition of the crop provides the option to further exploit its genetic potential through breeding. However, there are insufficient reports on the genetic variability of Ethiopian tef using a medium-throughput marker system. Hence, the current study was designed to evaluate the genetic variability of released and core germplasm which were collected earlier. Eighty-one tef genotypes collected from eight Ethiopian ecological zones and release variety were targeted using 14 SSR markers. The study ensued a total of 122.43 alleles through the entire loci and populations. All the used microsatellite loci were highly polymorphic with PIC ranging from 0.96 to 0.98 and mean of 0.976. The analysis showed the presence of high allelic diversity ranging from 0.94 to 0.97 with overall mean of 0.96. The molecular variance analysis indicated the existence of large genetic differentiation (FIS and FIT=0.87) with 86% and 13% of the total variation accounted by among genotypes within population and across from all population respectively. Whereas low genetic differentiation among population (FST=0.014. which accounts 1 %.) was observed. Multivariate analysis like clustering, and PCoA, analysis did not cluster genotypes into distinct groups according to their geographical areas of population. This is due to presumably gene flow among populations. The information of this study may be used as input for breeders in selecting breeding materials.