J. AMER. SOC. HORT. SCI. 123(6):1053-1057. 1998.

Genetic Relationships and Diversity in Carrot and other Daucus taxa based on Nuclear Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (nRFLPs)

B.S.Vivek ¹ and Philipp W. Simon ²
U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Vegetable Crops Research Unit, Department of Horticulture, 1575 Linden Drive, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53705

ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS. nuclear DNA, phylogeny, cladistic, phenetic

ABSTRACT. Current classifications of the genus Daucus are based on morphological and anatomical characteristics. We have used single to low copy nuclear restriction fragment length polymorphisms (nRFLPs) to describe the phylogeny and relationships of eight Daucus species including cultivated carrot (D. carota L.). Parsimony analysis of 247 characters (DNA fragments from 58 probe-enzyme combinations) yielded a tree in which accessions were grouped into three major clades and phenetic analysis using Jaccard’s coefficient yielded two major clusters. The phylogenetic relationships from the nuclear RFLP data generally agreed with an earlier morphological classification. Resolution and placement of D. guttatus and D. muricatus were not consisitent with the morphological classifications. Molecular variation among carrot inbreds was large.

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