Assessment of Genetic Diversity of Haberlea Rhodopensis Friv. by ITS1 Markers

ABSTRACTHaberlea rhodopensis Friv. is a Balkan endemic plant and a tertiary relic with highly fragmented habitat. Its populations are isolated and often inhabit different environmental conditions. We found significant variations in many morphology and phenology traits between and even within H. rhodopensis populations. It is interesting from evolutionary, genomic and ecological point of view to asses whether the variations can be attributed only to the plant adaptability or it could be attributed also to differences on genetic level. This initial study included three geographically isolated populations from Rhodopi and Stara Planina mountains. We asses at DNA level the polymorphism between these populations by internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) sequences. As a donor of plant material we used plants from the in vitro gene bank for Gesneriaceae family established at the Dept. of Plant physiology and Molecular biology.Initial results from our analyses showed that the population of H. rhodopensis for the re...