title: Genetic diversity ofPoa pratensisL. depending on geographical origin and compared with genetic markers.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Poa pratensisis one of the most common species of meadow grass in Europe. Most cultivars of the species found in Poland were originally derived from its ecotypes. We compared the effectiveness of the RAPD and ISSR methods in assessing the genetic diversity of the selected populations ofP. pratensis. We examined whether these methods could be useful for detecting a possible link between the geographical origin of a given population and its assessed genetic variation.
  
  
  METHODS
  The molecular markers RAPD and ISSR were used and their efficiency compared using, inter alia, statistical multivariate methods (UPGMA and PCA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The low value of Dice's coefficient (0.369) along with the significantly high percentage of polymorphic products indicates a substantial degree of genetic diversity among the studied populations. Our results found a correlation between the geographical origin of the studied populations and their genetic variations. For ISSR, which proved to be the more effective method in that respect, we selected primers with the greatest differentiating powers correlating to geographical origin.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The populations evaluated in this study were characterized by a high genetic diversity. This seems to confirm the hypothesis that ecotypes ofP. pratensisoriginating from different regions of Central Europe with different terrain structures and habitat conditions can be a source of great genetic variability.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Biology, Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection, Institute for Research on Biodiversity, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland; Faculty of Biology, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Center, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland.
authors.forename: Magdalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Szenejko
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Biology, Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection, Institute for Research on Biodiversity, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland; Faculty of Biology, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Center, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland.
authors.forename: Przemysław
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Śmietana
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Taxonomy and Phytogeography, Institute for Research on Biodiversity, Faculty of Biology, University of Szczecin , Szczecin , Poland.
authors.forename: Edyta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Stępień
keywords: Ecotypes; Genetic diversity; Geographical distribution; Grasses; Microsatellite primers; PCA; Poa pratensis; RAPD and ISSR methods