A new subspecies of sea buckthorns (Elaeagnus rhamnoides (L.) A. Nelson) from Iran based on molecular data

Sea buckthorn (Elaeagnus rhamnoides (L.) A. Nelson) is a medicinal, drought tolerant, nitrogen fixing and forest pioneer plant species. In this research, for the first time in Iran, molecular identification of the species distributed in different habitats of the country was carried out comparing to the known subspecies distributed worldwide. Specimens were collected from five habitats located in Alborz, Mazandaran, East and West Azerbaijan, and Qazvin provinces. Nuclear ribosomal ITS marker was used in the molecular study. After DNA extraction and PCR application, sequences obtained in this study were aligned with those obtained from Gene-Bank belonging to all sea buckthorn subspecies. The aligned sequences were analyzed using Bayesian and TCS phylogenetic methods. Results showed that the specimens collected from Alborz, Mazandaran, East Azerbaijan and Qazvin belong to the Caucasian subspecies, E. rhamnoides subsp. caucasica, but the specimen sampled from West Azerbaijan with two mutations is a new subspecies. Therefore, it is introduced as E. rhamnoides subsp. azerbaijanica.