Analysis of genetic divergence in pea (Pisum sativum L.) using quantitative traits and RAPD markers

Genetic diversity among 14 tall and 14 dwarf cultivars/elite lines of pea (Pisum sativum L.) was assessed based on 10 quantitative traits and 72 RAPD primers. Dendrogram based on quantitative traits revealed six clusters. In principal component analysis (PCA), the first three PCs together accounted for 61.48% of the total variation, and the grouping was consistent with that of UPGMA method. RAPD-based dendrogram showed three major clusters; cluster II was further divided into three subclusters. The first three PCs of RAPD data accounted for 29.28% of the total variation, and the grouping pattern was similar to that obtained by UPGMA. The tall genotypes in both the types of clustering indicated a lower level of diversity compared to the dwarf ones.The correlation estimated by Mantel test between the quantitative trait and RAPD matrices was non-significant (r = −0.26) for reason of targetting different genomic regions by RAPD markers the morphological traits. Cophenetic correlations which reflect the goodness of fit for a tree were 0.73 and 0.79 for quantitative traits based and RAPD based dendrogram, respectively.