Orobanche crenata is a parasitic weed that causes considerable yield losses on food legumes in Ethiopia and the Mediterranean region. Understanding the genetic diversity of Orobanche crenata using molecular techniques generate useful information in managing the weed through resistance breeding. This study aimed at assessing the genetic diversity of O. crenata populations collected from major faba bean growing areas of Ethiopia. A total of 96 samples were collected from the Orobanche-infested faba bean farmer field. The genetic diversity of the population was studied using 30 O. cumana SSR markers. The results showed that 11 SSRs were functional and transferable markers to study the diversity of O. crenata populations. The average number of alleles, gene diversity, heterozygosity, and polymorphic information content values for the SSR loci were 9.6, 0.82, 0.38, and 0.80, respectively. The pairwise genetic similarity analysis showed the lowest genetic distance between samples collected from South Gondar and South Wollo (0.12) while the highest genetic distance (0.48) was found between South Gondar and North Wollo. The analysis of molecular variance result indicated that the variation among individuals was a major source of genetic variation (55%) followed by within individuals (43%) and among populations (2%) variation. The output of population genetic structure analysis indicated the presence of two major groups irrespective of the area of collection or region of origin. Besides, the outcome of the spatial autocorrelation computation indicated a significant and positive genetic correlation between samples collected under a 28 km radius. In general, the absence of geographic region based genetic structure presumably demonstrates the expansion of the parasitic weed between farming sites upon its recent introduction to the country. Thus, the clear absence of population differentiation warrants screening faba bean population in hot spot area.

中文翻译：

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使用微卫星标记研究埃塞俄比亚列当种群的遗传多样性。

列当是一种寄生杂草，会导致埃塞俄比亚和地中海地区的豆类作物大幅减产。使用分子技术了解列当的遗传多样性可以为通过抗性育种管理杂草提供有用的信息。本研究旨在评估从埃塞俄比亚主要蚕豆种植区收集的O. crenata种群的遗传多样性。从列当侵染的蚕豆农田中总共采集了 96 个样本。使用 30 个O. cumana SSR 标记研究了种群的遗传多样性。结果表明，11个SSR是研究O. crenata种群多样性的功能性和可转移标记。SSR位点的平均等位基因数、基因多样性、杂合度和多态信息含量值分别为9.6、0.82、0.38和0.80。配对遗传相似性分析显示，南贡德尔和南卧洛采集的样本之间的遗传距离最小（0.12），而南贡德尔和北卧洛之间的遗传距离最大（0.48）。分子方差分析结果表明，个体间变异是遗传变异的主要来源（55%），其次是个体内变异（43%）和群体间变异（2%）。种群遗传结构分析的结果表明，无论收集地区或原产地如何，都存在两个主要群体。此外，空间自相关计算的结果表明，在28公里半径范围内采集的样本之间存在显着的正遗传相关性。一般来说，缺乏基于地理区域的遗传结构可能表明寄生杂草在最近引入该国后在农田之间扩展。因此，明显缺乏种群分化，有必要对热点地区的蚕豆种群进行筛查。