Study of genetic diversity using genetic markers is necessary to effective conservation of germplasm and to understand its genetic structure. Genetic variability in a species facilitate its adaptation to various environmental conditions. In the present study, genetic variability among 114 genotypes from 30 Pepper accessions were studied suing 11 ISSR primers and 14 morphological traits. Of 1653 locus pairs of ISSR markers, 7.04% showed significant level (P≤0.01) of linkage disequilibrium (LD). By analyzing genetic structure of population based on molecular data and using Bayesian model, 5 subpopulations (K=5) were identified. Association analysis was conducted using mixed linear model by considering kinship and genetic structure matrices as covariates in the model. Some molecular markers multiplied by 8 ISSR primers were identified to be significantly associate with 13 studied traits (P ≤ 0.05). Some markers were common among some studied traits that can be due to pleiotropy or linkage between loci controlling traits. Among studied ISSR primers, molecular markers produced by UBC834 primer showed the most association with the studied traits. Identified markers after validation can be useful in the development of pepper cultivars.

Genomic data can lead us to how of breeds and populations forming and process of genetic occurrences effecting even infrequent cases of them at time passage. A very worthy instance to genetic resources preservation that itself is counted an important subject, and improvement of animal breeding plans, is genetic structure discovery of studying populations. For investigation about genetic structure homogeneity in Zandi breed sheep population located in Tehran Zandi sheep breeding station, discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) and in inside of this analysis, principal components analysis (PCA) were performed. For this purpose, 99 heads of sheep were bled and genotyped using Illumina SNP chip 50K. Discriminant analysis of principal component obviously showed the genetic structure of studying population and its members separation to two groups that it may be arising from DAPC high sensitiveness that is able to investigate variance homogeneity in animal populations. In DAPC, to evaluate the clusters optimized number using BIC, k=2 was shown as best result. Investigation of results to maintain the number of principal components for discriminant analysis, takes into account that the first 31 components is the optimized number of component for analysis next steps. Re the importance of within group variance contemplating and also populations genetic structure for important genomic analyses, became clear that DAPC in study of Zandi population genetic structure, because that contemplates of more principal component number and subsequently increasing of contemplated variance, is more effective than PCA.

Isozymes are useful and important markers for studying genetic structure and breeding of rice. The level of polymorphism is an important character of each marker that represents its validation and relative importance. Allelic frequencies represent genetic structure of populations. Therefore, this investigation was conducted for evaluation of genetic structure and identifying of relative importance of isozyme loci in Iranian landraces of rice. One hundred twenty rice accessions were selected from National Plant Gene Bank of Iran (NPGBI). In each sample, enzyme extract was extracted from 4-6 seedlings. Separation and visualization of isozymes was carried out using Glaszman et al. (1988) protocol, with some minor modifications. In most isozymic loci, allelic frequencies of Iranian landraces had significant differences with average of other Asian rices. Also in each locus, one or two alleles were frequent. Five loci including Amp3, Pgi2, Est2, Amp1 and Amp2 with 60, 55.3, 54.8, 51 and 48 percent were more polymorphic, respectively. Three loci, Amp4, Est5 and Est9 were monomorphic and they are not useful markers for rice. Genetic diversity of Iranian landraces and Asian rices on Cat1, Pgi2, Amp3, Amp4 and Est5 loci have not significant diffrences, however, Pgi1, Est9, Est1 and Amp1 were reverse. Genotypic diversity index was 3.46, which is high in comparison with other Asian rices. These results showed a very high genetic variability and special genetic structure in Iranian landraces of rice. These can be due mainly to independent evolution of Iranian land races in unique ecological region of Iran which differes with the ecological conditions in the origin of rice in Southeast of Asia, India and China.

Conservation of indigenous animal is one of the main goals of animal breeding and identification of genetic structure of population is the basis for breed conservation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic structure and the genetic relationship between native horses’ in Ardabil Province using mitochondrial D-loop region. Blood samples were collected from 100 horses. Total DNA was extracted and 430 bp of D-Loop region (hyper variable) were amplified and sequenced using Sanger sequencing method. The analysis of data led to identify 48 polymorphic sites that create 52 haplotypes. The plotted phylogenic tree for haplotypes of Iranian native horses is placed in the 9 haplogroups including A, B, C, G, I, L, M, P and Q. Genetic and haplotype diversity values were 0.0241 and 0.877, respectively. Tajima D was calculated -0.571 which was not significant (p>0.1). Results of this study indicated that the maternal line of Ardabil horses had high genetic diversity.

The program GENALAND has been developed in recent years as a statistical program for genetic structure analysis. Integrating genetic data obtained from dominant and co-dominant markers with spacial data and without pre-defining the population boundaries can obtain number of homogeneous groups and a map of spacial distribution. Such information about population genetic structure can be used for conservation and management of species. In the current study genotypic data produced by nine microsatellite loci of 13 populations of Petaurus breviceps were used to investigate the spatial distribution of these populations and correlate the obtained spatial structure with environmental and landscape features. The result showed that four homogenous groups can be defined within these populations which are separated and isolated from each other due to habitat clearance and land use change. Maintaining the size of patches and establishing corridors between populations need to be consider in management and conservation of species.

The brown bear populations, contrary to other mobile carnivores, exhibit a worldwide genetic structure in several mitochondrial lineages. Populations of the Middle Eastern brown bear, including Iran, are at risk of local extinction. Genetic relationships between the Iranian brown bear and others in the world are still unclear. We sequenced a 614 base pair fragment of the mtDNA control region for 50 brown bears from Iran. The Iranian brown bear presents considerable haplotype diversity (50 individuals, 22 new haplotypes). Mitochondrial sequence analyses revealed one new major mtDNA lineage within Iranian brown bears, comprising 2–3 subclades: (i) Alborz, which includes bears from the Alborz and the Arasbaran Mountains; (ii) Zagros, including individuals from south of East Azerbaijan province to the Southern Zagros Mountains (Kazeroun, Fars province); and (iii) Fars, which comprises bears living in the Southeastern Zagros Mountains (Marvdasht-Eqlid, Fars province). The results of fixation index (FST) and analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) demonstrate significant genetic structure among the Iranian subclades. Overall, the Iranian brown bears show significant geographic structuring, in addition to the remarkable haplotype diversity.

Tan spot disease of wheat with the causal agent of Pyrenophora tritici-repentis is a very serious disease throughout the world causing severe yield losses. Out of 163 isolates of the pathogen، collected from Golestan and Mazandaran provinces، 58 were selected for a study of population genetic structure. Selecting the real representatives from the whole population was carried out according to the results of the rep-PCR with BOX primers، and as well the locations of the isolates and the fields where the isolates had been collected. Population genetic structure of the pathogen was evaluated using rep-PCR as a molecular marker with three primers namely BOX، ERIC and REP. Three softwares of POPGENE، NTSYS-pc and GenALEx6 were utilized for data analysis. Population structure study among six sub-populations of the Iranian isolates revealed that 73% of the total variance was related to the variations within sub-populations while 27% of that related to the variance among sub populations. Mean gene diversity of the population was estimated as 0. 3147. A dendrogram، based upon genetic similarity with Dice coefficient and UPGMA method showed no clear separations among isolates belonging to different races 1 and 2، so racial distribution of isolates is not found consistent with rep-PCR classification of the isolates in the dendrogram. There exists some consistency between geographical origin of the isolates and their genetic similarity. This is the first study covering population genetic structure of P. tritici-repentis in Iran. An evaluation of telemorph production regarding the pathogen، showed that pseudothecia (with asci and ascospores) were produced for 54% of the isolates while 17% of the isolates produced pseudothecia without asici and 29% while produced no sexual structures. It seems that beside the MAT gene and some other independent genetic factors، some macronutrients as well as humidity effect telemorph production.

The aim of this study was to identify and compare the mineral micronutrients compositions, color and genetic structure differences between the wild and farmed Caspian Sea Beluga (Huso huso) sturgeon caviar, which plays an important role to caviar market transparency to prove farmed caviar quality and nutritional values and wild and farmed Beluga caviar genetic identification. Mineral micronutrients were measured by atomic absorption, spectrophotometric and flame atomic emission spectroscopy methods, color by colorimeter and genetic differences by PCR sequencing method. Results showed that, wild samples contained higher amounts of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium than farmed ones (P<0.05), while, iron, copper and zinc were higher in farmed samples (P<0.05). Sodium content had no significant differences between wild and farmed samples, 4239.43±2.72 and 4237.21±2.18 (µg/g wet weight) respectively (P>0.05). L value in wild sample was 28.29 and in farmed one was 46%, a value was 1.34 and 2.66% and b value was 10.72 and 16.27% respectively (P<0.05), ΔE (color differences) was 15.21 between two samples. Genetic structure had no significant differences between two samples. In conclusion, it can be said that, there was significant differences in mineral micronutrients contents and color but genetic structure did not show any significant differences between two samples.

The aim of this research was to study the genetic structure of the Afghan Pika’s (Ochotona rufescens) populations in Northern Khorasan province in order to determine their isolation rate. A total of 122 samples from four sample groups (Ghorkhod, Golol-Sarani, Salouk and Sarigol) were selected and the genotypic features were detected using 7 microsatellite loci. The results showed that all of the loci were subject to polymorphism and the allele ranged from 2 – 7. Significant Fst and Rst values were found among the populations based on the AMOVA test. Based on the Assignment Test, more than 90 percent of the individuals of the populations belonged to their original population (only 10 percent of the individuals belonged to other populations). A Paired comparison of genetic differentiation between the populations revealed significant deferences among them. The results of the Prichard model grouping showed that the samples collected in this study were approximately 7 groups. The results of AMOVA analysis revealed a significant genetic structure among different populations. Also, the majority of the variance is related to the variance within the population. There seems to be a different but small genetic structure among the studied populations.

Once only limited to Eurasia, the worldwide distributed Plantago major L. is now considered as invasive. Its significant distributional range in Iran requires molecular scientific efforts to reliably elucidate its genetic diversity and population structure. Therefore, analysis of genetic diversity of 17 different populations of P. major by ISSR markers was carried out and revealed the presence of a relatively high genetic diversity, in which, means of genetic diversity statistics for populations including number of different alleles (Na), number of effective alleles (Ne), Shannon’s information index (I) and Nei gene diversity (H) were 1.12, 1.32, 0.271 and 0.184, respectively. Population of Damavand had the maximum Na (1.51) while population from Meshkinshahr indicated superior values for Ne (1.466), I (0.386), H (0.262), and UHe (0.291). Analyzing the genetic diversity distribution by AMOVA exhibited that a major portion of total genetic diversity is within-population (77%), and less among-populations (19%) and among-regions (4%). Neighbor Joining trees display gene flow/shared alleles among studied populations. Populations genetic stratification showed a mixture of two groups with different dominance from northwest to the northeast of Iran. Assessing the genetic structure indicated existence of a relatively strong genetic structure among populations. Mating system, invasiveness characters and seed dispersal are suggested to be effective factors for a high rate of gene flow and simultaneous presence of genetic differentiation among populations of P. major in Iran.