Abstract

Due to high level of hybridization and polyploidy, the perennial and allogamic Achillea L. genus with a complex phyletic structure has about 142 species widely distributed over in the Northern Hemisphere. The genus is widely distributed in Turkey with 48 species half of which are endemic. The gene and diversification center of the Santolinoideae section including 18 endemic species is thought to be in Anatolia. There exist no comprehensive molecular phylogenetic study on Achillea whose morphological revision in Turkey was completed in 2006.

In the study, phylogenetic analyzes were performed using 10 different oligonucleotides for amplification of ISSR bands based on 74 samples of 18 species from 3 sections of Achillea genus. All the oligonucleotides analyzed were found to be polymorphic. The total number of loci is 135 and 44 (33%) of them are parsimony informative. Serious topological differences showing that Achillea taxa include both monophyletic and polyphyletic lineages were revealed in phylogenetic trees obtained under UPGMA, MP and BI methods. Sections were not clearly separated in trees with clear species separations. The results of UPGMA and MP analyses showed that A. vermicularis Trin. was placed as the outgroup while A. sipirokorensis Hausskn. & Bornm. and A. sintenisii Hub.-Mor. formed the outgroup together in Bayesian Inference analysis (BI). The obtained clusters of PCA based on binary genetic distance values were consistent with the result of BI analysis. Molecular variation analysis showed that almost all of the molecular variation was completely resulted from variations within populations.