Peer review

Despite a large number of Aegilops L. species and their diversity in Azerbaijan, a majority of this genetic material has not been characterized at molecular levels. The current study has implemented DArTseq technology to evaluate genetic diversity among 150 accessions of different Aegilops species from Azerbaijan. A total of 61,574 SilicoDArTseq and 30,433 SNP markers were used to assess genetic diversity in Aegilops species. Genetic diversity was measured using Shannon?s genetic diversity index, which was equal to 0.852. Dendrograms were built to establish the relationship among Aegilops species. Both the DArTseq and SNP markers could completely segregate the U genome species from those with D genome with high confidence and allowed assigning most species to separate subclusters. The pattern of clustering within the Aegilops tauschii Coss. to certain extent was related to their geographical regions. Genetic structure among the 150 Aegilops accessions was similar with the cluster analysis. Two groups were identified in the studied population, which were exactly corresponded to two clusters in the dendrogram. Principal coordinate analysis confirmed sub-grouping obtained by cluster analysis. The first two principal coordinates explained 82.34% of the total variation. The study reported a sufficient level of genetic diversity of Aegilops from different eco-geographical regions of Azerbaijan, which can be very useful for their conservation and management, as well as for profitable diversifying the gene pool of hexaploid wheat.

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