Skip to main content
SLU publication database (SLUpub)

Abstract

Durum wheat, the world's second most cultivated wheat species, is a staple crop, critical for global food security, including in Ethiopia where it serves as a center of diversity. However, climate change and genetic erosion threaten its genetic resources, necessitating genomic studies to support conservation and breeding efforts. This study characterized genome-wide diversity, population structure (STRUCTURE, principal coordinate analysis (PCoA), neighbor-joining trees, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA)), and selection signatures (FST, Hardy-Weinberg deviations) in Ethiopian durum wheat by analyzing 376 genotypes (148 accessions) using an Illumina Infinium 25K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array. A set of 7842 high-quality SNPs enabled the assessments, comparing landraces with cultivars and breeding populations. Results revealed moderate genetic diversity (mean polymorphism information content (PIC) = 0.17; gene diversity = 0.20) and identified 26 loci under selection, associated with key traits like grain yield, stress tolerance, and disease resistance. AMOVA revealed 80.1% variation among accessions, with no significant differentiation by altitude, region, or spike density. Landraces formed distinct clusters, harboring unique alleles, while admixture suggested gene flow via informal seed exchange. The findings highlight Ethiopia's rich durum wheat diversity, emphasizing landraces as reservoirs of adaptive alleles for breeding. This study provides genomic insights to guide conservation and the development of climate-resilient cultivars, supporting sustainable wheat production globally.

Keywords

durum wheat genomics; population structure; landrace conservation; selection signatures; single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based genotyping

Published in

International Journal of Molecular Sciences
2025, volume: 26, number: 15, article number: 7220
Publisher: MDPI

SLU Authors

UKÄ Subject classification

Molecular Biology
Genetics and Breeding in Agricultural Sciences

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms26157220

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/143471