Abstract

Lentil is one of the important pulse crops in Algeria. The narrow genetic base of local cultivars and the disappearance of many local accessions contribute to the loss of lentil biodiversity. Therefore, the study of genetic diversity is essential for preservation of existing local accessions of lentils. Twenty-seven accessions collected across different agroecological zones of Algeria, and three improved lines from ICARDA were evaluated using 14 simple sequence repeat markers (SSR). Large genetic variability was found within the germplasm collection for SSR analysis. The total number of alleles was 52, averaging 5.2 alleles per locus. The number of alleles ranged from 3 (SSR90, SSR83) to 9 (SSR202) and the polymorphic information content value varied from 0.40 to 0.85 with an average of 0.64. The frequency of the most common allele at each locus ranged from 17% (SSR202) to 71% (SSR28, SSR183). On the basis of the genetic similarity coefficients, cluster analysis revealed significant diversity among the genotypes and separated the accessions into four groups. Some Algerian accessions shared similar genetic backgrounds with the lines from ICARDA.