Genetic relationships among Pistacia vera L. cultivars based on simple sequence repeat markers

Pistacia belongs to the family Anacardiaceae (cashew family), and consists of 11 species. Pistachio (Pistacia vera L.) is the commercially grown species within the genus Pistacia. In this study, phylogenetic relationships among 24 P. vera cultivars were used to test simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. Within 200 SSR loci analysed in 24 pistachio cultivars, the best 25 were used futher analysis. The 25 SSR loci produced 203 polymorphic alleles with an average of 8.12 alleles per locus. The effective number of alleles ranged from 2.57 to 7.60. Averages of Ne, Ho, He and PIC values in P. vera were calculated as 4.22, 0.64, 0.74 and 0.71, respectively. The constructed unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) dendrogram separated 24 pistachio cultivars based on their origins.