Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Iranian Wild Blackberry Species Using Multivariate Statistical Analysis and Inter-Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) Markers Ali Gharaghani (
[email protected] ) Shiraz University Mehdi Garazhian Shiraz University Saeid Eshghi Shiraz University Ahmad Tahmasebi Shiraz University Research Article Keywords: cluster analysis, correlation, genetic diversity, Rubus ssp., variability Posted Date: January 4th, 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-136174/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Page 1/18 Abstract This study was carried out to estimate the genetic diversity and relationships of 74 Iranian blackberry genotypes assigned to 5 different species using inter- simple sequence repeats (ISSR) marker analysis and morphological trait characterization. Sixteen traits including phenological, vegetative and reproductive attributes were recorded, and 10 ISSR primers were screened. Results showed that yield and leaf width have the highest and lowest genetic diversity, (diversity index = 62.57 and 13.74), respectively. Flowering and ripening date recorded as traits having the strongest correlations (r = 0.98). The selected 10 ISSR primers produced a total of 161 amplied fragments (200 to 3500 bp) of which 113 were polymorphic. The highest, lowest and average PIC values were 0.53, 0.38 and 0.44, respectively. Principle component analysis (PCA) based on morphological traits showed that the rst six components explained 84.9% of the variations of traits studied, whilst the principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) based on ISSR data implied the rst eight principal coordinates explained 67.06% of the total variation. Cluster analysis based on morphological traits and ISSR data classied all genotypes into two and three major groups, respectively, and the distribution pattern of genotypes was mainly based on species and the geographic origins.