In order to characterize and conserve the endemic pastoral species Medicago tunetana, many prospecting missions were carried out in mountainous regions of the Tunisian ridge. Twenty-seven eco-geographical and morphological traits were studied for six M. tunetana accessions and followed by molecular analysis using seven Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR). Only five markers were polymorphic and reproductible in the six M. tunetana populations. A total of 54 alleles were observed with an average of 10.8 bands/primer/genotype. Mean Polymorphism Information Content (PIC), Nei gene diversity (h) Shannon's information index (I) indicated the high level of polymorphism. The generated dendrogram with hierarchical UPGMA cluster analysis grouped accessions into two main groups with various degree of subclustring. All the studied accessions shared 57% of genetic similarity. Analysis of variance showed high significant difference between morphological traits among M. tunetana populations where MT3 from Kesra showed different morphological patterns regarding leaf, pod and seeds traits. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed two principal groups of M. tunetana populations based on potassium, total and active lime contents in soil. Our results suggest that SSR markers developed in M. truncatula could be a valuable tool to detect polymorphism in M. tunetana. Furthermore, the studied morphological markers showed a large genetic diversity among M. tunetana populations. This approach may be applicable for the analysis of intra specific variability in M. tunetana accessions. Our study could help in the implementation of an effective and integrated conservation programs of perennial endemic Medicago.
Keywords: SSRs markers; characterization; conservation programs; genetic diversity; polymorphism.