Abstract

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium L.) is an important medicinal plant with different pharmaceutical uses. In this research, ISSR and morphological markers were used to assess genetic diversity in several accessions of yarrow from various geographical regions of Iran. Fourteen primers were used to amplify 228 bands out of which 199 (87.28%) were polymorphic. Cluster and Principle coordinate analyses (PCoA) showed that most genotypes were grouped based on their geographical regions. Analysis of Molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed that the differences among groups only accounted for 32.55% of the total variation, whereas differences among populations and within populations were 40.94 and 26.51%, respectively. Genetic distances among eight Iranian populations showed that the minimum gene diversity over loci was observed in North-Western (NW) population (0.021 ± 0.015), while the highest gene diversity was found in North (N) (0.129 ± 0.08) population. The results of morphological analysis in most cases corresponded to those obtained through molecular analyses.

Key words: Achillea millefolium, ISSR, genetic diversity, morphology.