Analysis of Morphological and Molecular Genetic Diversity of Salicornia Iranica Akhani Wildlife Populations around Urmia Lake, Iran

Abstract Salicornia is a halophyte plant capable of being irrigated with seawater, which can be used as an alternative food. Given this, it is necessary to study the potentials of this plant's morphological diversity in the natural environment. In this study, 33 wild populations of Salicornia were collected from different geographical areas around Urmia Lake during the flowering stage, and some morphological traits and 25 ISSR loci of the plant were measured. Based on morphological traits and the cluster analysis, Salicornia populations were divided into four groups. Overall, the high percentage of polymorphic gene loci (65.69%), the average number of effective alleles per gene locus (1.63), and the Shannon data index (0.540) indicate that ISSR markers can be used in Identify genetic diversity to be used. Molecular data cluster analysis divided the studied populations into two main groups, which included 12.12% and 87.88% of the populations, respectively. Based on the effective analysis of the population's genetic structure and the precise classification of individuals into suitable sub-populations, the value of K = 2 was calculated. The research findings indicated that markers UBC823, B, A7, and K, and with the Shannon index, effective allele, and large heterozygosity values are markers with the highest effectiveness compared to other markers utilized, and they are used better than other compounds in genetic distance. The findings of this study will aid in parental selection studies for breeding programs of salicornia in future.