Comparative biosystematics studies on Lathyrus L. (Fabaceae) in Bolu

Morphometric characters, quantitative and qualitative, and two molecular markers, RAPD and ISSR, were used to determine the phenetic classification of 14 taxa of Lathyrus L. (Fabaceae) collected from Bolu Province. In morphometric part, 12 quantitative and 13 qualitative morphological characters were scored. In molecular part, a total of 320 and 92 bands were produced by 12 RAPD and 4 ISSR markers, respectively. Data obtained from morphometric and molecular analyses were used to construct phenograms according to the UPGMA method based upon Euclidean distance matrices in package program of Statistica 8.0. Congruences were found between the groups based on morphological and molecular data in some extent. Especially, at different distances levels, groups of sections showed some similarities to the sectional classifications of Lathyrus carried out previously by some researchers. According to the results obtained from the numerical analyses indicated that the RAPD and ISSR molecular techniques may reliably be used for the infrageneric classifications of Lathyrus. Additionaly, because of different molecular and especially morphological characteristics of L. hirsutus samples collected from Gerede population might be taken into account as being a new subspecies.