Androula Georgiou¹, Stylianos Karataglis² and Demetrios Roupakias<sup>3

1</sup>Horticultural Section, Agricultural Research Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus (Georgiou@arinet.ari.gov.cy)
²Department of Botany, University of Thessaloniki, GR-54806, Thessaloniki, Greece
³Department of Agriculture, University of Thessaloniki, GR-54006, Thessaloniki, Greece


Summary

The chromosome C-banding pattern of two Ae. caudata varieties was studied. The two varieties showed a similar basic C-banding pattern, with a restricted inter- and intravarietal heterochromatic polymorphism. The polymorphism observed in var. typica concerns the SAT₂ and SM chromosomes while in var. polyathera the SM chromosome. In addition, small differences between the two varieties were observed on SAT₁, SAT₂, SM, ST₁ and ST₂ Chromosomes. It was concluded that the two varieties had a restricted inter- and intravarietal polymorphism which indicates a close chromosomal similarity between the two varieties.

Key words: Aegilops caudata var. typica, Aegilops caudata var. polyathera, C-banding, inter- and intravarietal polymorphism.


Introduction

The genus Aegilops L. bears a close and important relationship with the cultivated wheat Triticum aestivum. Aegilops caudata L. is an annual diploid wild relative of wheat distributed over the Eastern Mediterranean. Eig (1929) described two varieties, var. typica and var. polyathera Boiss. which in Greece very often grow sympatrically.

Giemsa C-banding has been widely used for identifying wheat chromosomes and wheat-alien chromosome addition, substitution and translocation lines (Gill and Kimber 1974; Endo 1986; Gill et al. 1991). Only limited information is available about the banding pattern of wild relatives of wheat (Gill and Kimber 1974; Friebe and Heun 1989; Dhaliwal et al. 1990; Friebe et al. 1990) and so far a few reports describe the banding pattern of Ae. caudata (Gill 1981; Teoh and Hutchinson 1983; Schubert et al. 1987). However, the investigations on intraspecific variation in C-banding pattern of Aegilops species are few (Teoh et al. 1983; Friebe et al. 1992) and such work on natural populations is fewer (Georgiou et al. 1992). Such information is very valuable for identifying chromatin of wild Aegilops species in wheat - Aegilops derivatives. The present study was undertaken to investigate the C-band polymorphism of the two Ae. caudata varieties typica and polyathera in a single mixed population.

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