Data analysis methods.

This is the oldest English language journal in genetics. Founded by W. Bateson and R. C. Punnett in 1910, the Journal of Genetics was later edited by J. B. S. Haldane; later, Haldane and his wife, Helen Spurway brought the journal with them to India. After his death in 1964, Mrs. Haldane continued publication of the journal, with Madhav Gadgil and H. Sharat Chandra (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) and Suresh Jayakar (Laboratorio de Genetica Biochimica ed Evoluzionistica, Pavia) as editors, until her own death in 1977. In 1985, with the permission of Haldane’s heirs, the Indian Academy of Sciences resumed publication of the journal. The journal retains its traditional interest in evolutionary research that is of relevance to geneticists, even if not explicitly genetic in nature.

The journal of genetics

Climate change is a major threat to most of the agricultural crops grown in tropical and sub-tropical areas globally. Drought stress is one of the consequences of climate change that has a negative impact on crop growth and yield. In the past, many simulation models were proposed to predict climate change and drought occurrences, and it is extremely important to improve essential crops to meet the challenges of drought stress which limits crop productivity and production. Wheat and barley are among the most common and widely used crops due to their economic and social values. Many parts of the world depend on these two crops for food and feed, and both crops are vulnerable to drought stress. Improving drought stress tolerance is a very challenging task for wheat and barley researchers and more research is needed to better understand this stress. The progress made in understanding drought tolerance is due to advances in three main research areas: physiology, breeding, and genetic research. The physiology research focused on the physiological and biochemical metabolic pathways that plants use when exposed to drought stress. New wheat and barley genotypes having a high degree of drought tolerance are produced through breeding by making crosses from promising drought-tolerant genotypes and selecting among their progeny. Also, identifying genes contributing to drought tolerance is very important. Previous studies showed that drought tolerance is a polygenic trait and genetic constitution will help to dissect the gene network(s) controlling drought tolerance. This review explores the recent advances in these three research areas to improve drought tolerance in wheat and barley.

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Drought Stress Tolerance in Wheat and Barley: Advances in Physiology, Breeding and Genetics Research.

Economically, legumes (Fabaceae) represent the second most important family of crop plants after the grass family, Poaceae. Grain legumes account for 27% of world crop production and provide 33% of the dietary protein consumed by humans, while pasture and forage legumes provide vital part of animal feed. Fabaceae, the third largest family of flowering plants, has traditionally been divided into the following three subfamilies: Caesalpinioideae, Mimosoideae, and Papilionoideae, all together with 800 genera and 20,000 species. The latter subfamily contains most of the major cultivated food and feed crops. Among the grain legumes are some of mankind's earliest crop plants, whose domestication parallelled that of cereals: Soybean in China; faba bean, lentil, chickpea and pea in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East; cowpeas and bambara groundnut in Africa; soybean and mungbeans in East Asia; pigeonpea and the grams in South Asia; and common bean, lima bean, scarlet runner bean, tepary bean and lupin in Central and South America. The importance of legumes is evidenced by their high representation in ex situ germplasm collections, with more than 1,000,000 accessions worldwide. A detailed knowledge of the phylogenetic relationships of the Fabaceae is essential for understanding the origin and diversification of this economically and ecologically important family of angiosperms. This review aims to combine the phylogenetic and genetic diversity approaches to better illustrate the origin, domestication history and preserved germplasm of major legume crops from 13 genera of six tribes and to indicate further potential both for science and agriculture.

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Legume Crops Phylogeny and Genetic Diversity for Science and Breeding

Genetic Data Analysis: Methods for Discrete Population Genetic Data

Lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris), is a self-pollinating diploid (2n = 2x = 14), cool-season legume crop and is consumed worldwide as a rich source of protein (∼24.0%), largely in vegetarian diets. Here we report development of a genetic linkage map of Lens using 114 F2 plants derived from the intersubspecific cross between L 830 and ILWL 77. RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA) primers revealed more polymorphism than ISSR (intersimple sequence repeat) and SSR (simple sequence repeat) markers. The highest proportion (30.72%) of segregation distortion was observed in RAPD markers. Of the 235 markers (34 SSR, 9 ISSR and 192 RAPD) used in the mapping study, 199 (28 SSRs, 9 ISSRs and 162 RAPDs) were mapped into 11 linkage groups (LGs), varying between 17.3 and 433.8 cM and covering 3843.4 cM, with an average marker spacing of 19.3 cM. Linkage analysis revealed nine major groups with 15 or more markers each and two small LGs with two markers each, and 36 unlinked markers. The study reported assigning of 11 new SSRs on the linkage map. Of the 66 markers with aberrant segregation, 14 were unlinked and the remaining 52 were mapped. ISSR and RAPD markers were found to be useful in map construction and saturation. The current map represents maximum coverage of lentil genome and could be used for identification of QTL regions linked to agronomic traits, and for marker-assisted selection in lentil.

Construction of intersubspecific molecular genetic map of lentil based on ISSR, RAPD and SSR markers

Genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships among 48 pear accessions belonging to six species were determined using 23 morphological traits and 20 simple sequence repeat (SSR) primers. To assess the genetic diversity, data on morphological (both quantitative and qualitative) traits were recorded during 2010–2012 using standard pear descriptors. It was observed that the traits ratio of fruit length to diameter, persistency of calyx on mature fruits and fruit surface and pulp texture were important in detecting variation across pear species. At molecular level, 20 SSR primers amplified 190 polymorphic alleles with an average of 9.5 alleles per primer. Size of amplified alleles ranged from 85 to 450 bp. Mean polymorphic information content (PIC) was 0.80 showing high level of SSR polymorphism. Bayesian model-based STRUCTURE analysis assigned genotypes into five clusters and also showed the extent of admixture within individuals. Genotypes belonging to Pyrus pyrifolia were clustered into two different clusters indicating broad genetic base for this species while Pyrus communis genotypes appeared to have conserved genetic makeup. Dendrogram-based on Jaccard’s similarity coefficient and neighbor-joining tree showed two major groups of Asiatic (P. pyrifolia, Pyrus pashia, Pyrus serotina and Pyrus jacquemontiana) and European (P. communis) pears. However, accessions belonging to P. pyrifolia were further divided into subgroups. Cluster analysis based on morphological traits was in agreement with the dendrogram and structure clusters obtained with SSR data. The Mantel matrix correspondence test was used to further compare the molecular and morphological similarity matrices and positive correlation coefficient (r = 0.164; P = 0.001) was observed. Results of this study present important information about genetic structure of Indian pear accessions which can contribute significantly to future breeding and improvement programmes in this species.

Genetic diversity and structure of Pyrus accessions of Indian Himalayan region based on morphological and SSR markers

Genetic diversity of 48 sea buckthorn genotypes collected from 16 locations in four diverse geographical regions of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir states of north-western Himalayan region of India, was analyzed using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR), simple sequence repeat (SSR) and MADS-box gene markers. While 21 decamer primers generated 155 loci, of which 148 (95.48%) were polymorphic with average of 7.3 loci per primer, ten ISSR primers generated 86 loci (8.6 loci per primer), out of which 83 (96.51%) were polymorphic. Six SSRs generated 18 loci (3 loci per primer), of which 17 (94.45%) were polymorphic, whereas 3 SSR primers resulted into monomorphic bands. Two MADS-box primers on the other hand generated 13 loci (6.5 loci per primers) with 100% polymorphism. RAPD, ISSR, SSR and MADS box gene-specific primers generated amplicons with polymorphism information content (PIC) values of 0.60 to 0.88, 0.60 to 0.91, 0.23 to 0.73 and 0.56 to 0.80, respectively. Cluster analysis of genotypes based on Jaccard’s similarity coefficient using DARwin generated a dendrogram which revealed 11 groups that followed clustering pattern more or less according their geographical origin as the Mantel’s test also indicated a good fit with r-value of 0.84. Internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analysis revealed the distribution of Hippophae salicifolia in Sangla region of Kinnaur. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) indicated sufficient genetic differentiation within populations and a low level of variation among populations. Clustering by DARWIN was supported by principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and STRUCTURE. Some species specific diagnostic markers were also identified.

	Key words: Hippophae, genetic diversity, simple sequence repeat (SSR), inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR), Internal transcribed spacer (ITS), sequence analysis, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA).

Analysis of molecular genetic diversity and population structure in sea buckthorn (Hippophae spp L.) from north-western Himalayan region of India

A field experiment was conducted during winter season of 1990-91, 1991-92 and 1992-93 to study the effect of irrigation and phosphorus levels on yield of safflower (Carrhamus tintortus L. ). Two irrigations applied to safflower either at rosette + flowering or rosette + seed-setting stages gave significantly higher yield (1.52 tonnes/ha), yield attributes (16.7 heads/plant and 18.1 seeds/head), net return (Rs 6 340/ha) and benefit : cost ratio (.1.47) compared with l irrigation. Applicatitln 0f 26.4 kg P/ha gave significantly higher seed yield (1.43 tonnes/ha) and oil yield (439 kg/ha) than the control and 13.2 kg P/ha. However, irrigation level did not affect the oil content in seed. Interaction effect irigation and P on seed yield was significant. Application of  P @ 26.4 kg/ha gave additional net return of Rs 1 095/ha compared with 13.2 kg/ha and of Rs 2 470/ha compared with the control. Highest mean consumptive use (377 mm water) was recorded when safflower received 3 irrigations (rosette + flowering + seed-setting stages) and highest water-use efficiency (4.37 kg/ha-mm) was obtained when 2 irrigations were applied at rosette + seed-setting stages.

B. L. Verma

Papers

Construction of intersubspecific molecular genetic map of lentil based on ISSR, RAPD and SSR markers

Genetic diversity and structure of Pyrus accessions of Indian Himalayan region based on morphological and SSR markers

Analysis of molecular genetic diversity and population structure in sea buckthorn (Hippophae spp L.) from north-western Himalayan region of India

Effect of irrigation and phosphorus on safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) yield in Rajasthan

Performance of different crop sequences under various irrigation levels