Molecular and Chemical Diversity of Spartium junceum in Different Altitudes of Libyan Green Mountains

In the Libyan Green Mountains, this study was conducted to evaluate the effects of different elevations and topography on the genetic variation and chemical composition of Spartium junceum. The results indicated a significant difference among the antioxidant activity, phenolic compounds, and flavonoids content of ‎flower extracts obtained from the genotypes of different regions. The total phenol content ranged from 22.74 to 31.66 mg GAE/g, whereas the total flavonoids ‎content ranged from 7.35 to 10.74 mg CE/g DW. The antioxidant efficiency appeared variable among the flower extracts, ranging between 66.81-91.55 μM Trolox equivalents (TE)/g of dry matter.‎ Genetic variation was examined by inter-simple sequence repeats showed a mean value of 0.26 in gene diversity, as well as a mean value of ‎0.21 in polymorphism information content. A total of 26 bands were observed, with an average of 3.25 bands per primer, while 50% of the bands were polymorphic. The most ‎effective primers were BT01, BT09, and BT11 ‎which ‎generated four ‎bands. The least effective primer was BT10 which generated only two bands. Phylogenetic relationships between the genotypes evidently divided the samples into two main groups according to geographical location.