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ABSTRACT Ephedra procera Fisch and Mey is an important wild medicinal, evergreen dioecious shrub found fragmentally at high altitudes of Balochistan, Pakistan. Published data regarding the E. procera is limited in the area under discussion. Therefore study was initiated to determine genetic diversity of this species from three different altitudes of Quetta valley, Balochistan through genetic polymorphism (by estimating genetic distances). The study was carried out during 2012-2014 using different molecular markers, ten-mer Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and eighteen-merInter-Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR). Out of total sampled plants, nine were selected for this study. Out of 35RAPD and 5 ISSRs, 6 RAPD and 3 ISSRs were able to characterize the studied genotypes.
A total of 92 DNA fragments were amplified and 57 (61.95%) were polymorphic with an average of 10.2 amplified per primer. Unweighted pair group method of arithmetic means (UPGMA) method was used for cluster analysis indicating high genetic diversity in investigated population. Distance tree illustrated maximum genetic diversity between A2 and C1. It may be due to the altitudinal gradient, fragmented population and anthropogenic factors. Data analyses provided information to implement conservation strategy for this taxon.
Key words: Genetic diversity, Ephedra procera, high altitudes, RAPD, ISSR.
INTRODUCTION Ephedra procera Fisch.andMey. is one of the important specie of the genus Ephedra of the family Ephedracea (gymnospermae). It has been reported that 42 species represent this genus on the world leve. While the share of Pakistan is provisionally reported to be nine (Ghafoor et al., 2007); whereas, five species of the genus Ephedra are found in Balochistan including Ephedra procera, E. gerardiana, E. intermedia, E. sarcocarpa and E. ciliata.
It is a dioecious perennial, evergreen shrub found in different elevation zones of Balochistan including high altitudes of Quetta valley. This plant is important both ethnobotanically and commercially and is locally known as Nari oman". This plant is used for treating asthma by the rural community.
As the use of medicinal plants for different diseases is a common practice in rural communities of Pakistan (Khan et al., 2009; Khan et al., 2014) therefore, proper documentation of wild plants is helpful for further studies. Ephedrine is manufactured from this species by Merck Marker's, Quetta. Many reported have shown that the native regions of this genus is central...