RFLP- and RAPD-based genetic relationships of seven diploid species of Avena with the A genome

Relatively few molecular analyses are available for diploid oat species, which constitute the majority of the wild species of Avena and, therefore, the principal natural reservoir of variability. The present work reports an RAPD-(random amplified polymorphic DNA) and RFLP-(restriction fragment length polymorphism) based study of the intra- and interspecific variability of seven diploid A-genome oat species. Both types of markers resulted in valid tools for identifying polymorphisms both within and between species. The two statistical analyses, UPGMA (unweighted pair group method, arithmetic mean) and PCoA (principal coordinate analysis), computed on the basis of genetic similarities estimated from RAPDs and RFLPs, showed that the different accessions grouped according to species, but the similarity coefficients were consistently higher in the RFLP analysis. Furthermore, slight differences were observed in the intra- and interspecific relationships found with the two types of markers. This may support the hypothesis that the polymorphisms revealed by the two types of markers may associate with regions of the genome having different evolutionary rates. The relationships among species are not identical to those deduced from previous karyotypic and morphological studies, thus suggesting a partially different evolutionary pathway in oat speciation.