Genetic variation and relationships among spring camelina (Camelina sativa, Brassicaceae) accessions of different origin

Camelina sativa L. is one of the oldest crops of the Brassicaceae family, first domesticated in the region of south-eastern Europe. It has regained interest as a very promising alternative oilseed crop with broad adaptability, a wide range of tolerances to pests and diseases, and low-input requirements. The genetic diversity in spring camelina proved to be limited, so the identification and characterization of genetic variations in germplasm originating from different sources is considered very useful for development of efficient breeding programmes. The aim of the study was to use SSR markers in order to investigate genetic variation of twenty spring camelina accessions of different origin and estimate their genetic relatedness. Forty-five individual samples were taken from each accession and used for amplification of SSR markers P4C11, P6E4 and LIB19. Percentage of polymorphic loci, number of alleles, effective number of alleles, expected heterozygosity and Shannon's information index were used to estimate genetic variation. The accessions expressed different levels of genetic variation. The highest variability was found in cultivar Zavolzskij, breeding line CK2X-7, cultivar NS Zlatka and breeding line CK2X-9. The most uniform were cultivar Pernice, and population Maslomania. AMOVA (analysis of molecular variance) showed that 64% of the total genetic variation was attributed to variance within accessions and 36% to variance among them. IBased on genetic distance, accessions were divided in two clades, which both were further divided in two subclades. Genetic distance analysis indicated that there was overlapping in certain breeding programs and exchange of breeding germplasm.