Assessment of genetic diversity in naturally growing 29 Trifolium L. It contains about species Zohary and Heller, ; Gillet and Taylor, , and of those the highly cultured ones are especially agronomically important Coombe, ; Zohary and Heller, It is particularly common in the northern hemisphere. Major centers are found in North America 60—65 species , Africa 25—30 species , and Eurasia — species Zohary and Heller, Presl , Mystillus C.
Six sections out of these 8 were restricted to the Old World or Eurasia and some extend to Africa. Molecular methods are emphasized in research on plant diversity as direct agents of genetic information Ghariani et al. Molecular techniques are usually preferred to explain the genetic status of taxa and also for phylogenetic and biogeographical distributions. Another study was done with 31 Trifolium species using internal transcribed spacer ITS markers Vizintin et al.
Some molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that Trifolium presents monophyly Steele and Wojciechowski, ; Ellison et al. Although Watson et al. One contained members of the sections Chronosemium Ser. Ellison et al. Turkey is a Mediterranean country containing 7 out of the 8 sections, with more than Trifolium species Cocks, ; Benett et al.
Naturally growing Trifolium taxa around Bolu Province are represented by 4 of the 7 sections. In this preliminary study, the genetic relationships of Trifolium taxa from Bolu Province were obtained using 7 microsatellites and 14 RAPD markers. Some of the varieties such as T. Materials and methods Trifolium taxa were collected in and around Bolu Province.
Table 1. List of sampled Trifolium taxa and their distributions. Taxon name Taxon code Locality Coordinate Alt. USLU et al. A total of 14 RAPD primers were tested but 11 of them gave polymorphism and reproducible banding patterns for all studied taxa. Blank samples containing water instead of DNA were used for the negative control.
