Genetic Diversity and Phylogenetic Relationships among Jatropha curcas L. Genotypes from Eastern India

Genetic diversity and relationships among 31 genotypes collected from wide geographical range in eastern India was studied employing Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. 19 markers (identified out of 25) produced 139 band in total. Off these 139 bands, 131 bands were polymorphic exhibiting a high polymorphism of 94.24%. Similarity indices estimated on the basis of RAPD primers ranged widely from 0.44 to 0.83 which suggests that these accessions represent genetically diverse population possibly due to predominance of cross pollination and seed source variability. Genotyping data obtained for RAPD primer across collected accessions were used to generate the UPGMA - based phylogenetic tree which shows two major clusters. The cluster I consisted of 16 genotypes from two states Jharkhand and Odisha (Chotanagpur and Eastern plateau region) while 15 accessions from West Bengal and Bihar (Indo Gangetic plains region) were grouped together in the Cluster II. This clear alignment of accessions into two different clusters as per geographical regions was probably due to different growing conditions in two clusters.