Adaptive responses and genetic divergence in a world germplasm collection of chick pea (Cicer arietinum L.)

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Abstract
A world germplasm collection of 5477 lines of chick pea were evaluated for eight characters related to fitness and yield at two locations in India. Multivariate analyses as Mahalanobis D 2 statistic, canonical analysis, and factor analysis were used for the classification of this material and to assess the genetic divergence between them. On D 2 analysis and grouping the whole collection fell into six clusters with substantial genetic divergence between them. Despite the overall parallelism between genetic diversity and geographical distance stringent natural and human selection or geographical barriers preventing gene flow were found to have played a significant role in the genetic divergence of this material. Plant type was reflected as the most important character operating in the genetic divergence between geographical groups, followed by seed colour and flower colour. Significant negative correlations were found between 100 seed weight and number of seeds per pod and seed colour. Further independent classification using canonical analysis confirmed the results obtained from the D 2 analysis. Factor analysis was used to resolve the intercorrelations between the eight variables into fewer meaningful factors which could explain the major forces in intraspecific differentiation. The loadings in the first factor reflected the importance of characters related to the reproductive capacity of the individual. Inclusion of flowering time and seed maturity time in the second factor which has an equal contribution suggests the importance of these characters in the competitive ability of the plant under natural and human selection.