Cladistic and phylogenetic analyses of the genus Cicer in Turkey

Fifteen taxa of the genus Cicer L. growing naturally in Turkey and out-groups were classified by phylogenetic and cladistic analysis. Taxa of the genus Cicer and the out-group taxa belonging to the closest genera Phaseolus L., Vicia L., Lathyrus L. and Ononis L., which are placed in Phaseoleae, Vicieae and Ononideae tribes, respectively, were used in molecular studies in order to derive their phylogenetic relationships. Morphological, palynological and seed characters were used on the basis of 143 traits. The micromorphological characters of seed and pollen grains were revealed by SEM. Lathyrus L. and Vicia L. species were used as out-groups for numerical analysis. Ten specimens were used for the measurements of metric characters related to the morphological structures of the taxa used for statistical analysis via PAUP and NTSYS-pc packages. Phylogenetic relationships between species and populations of the same species growing in different locations and their variations were determined using molecular methods performed on regions of the Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR). DNA was isolated from the collected samples, using modified CTAB protocols. ISSR was used for phylogenetic fingerprinting. The data were analyzed with NTSYS-pc package. Standardized data were used to generate a dendrogram that revealed the phylogenetic relationships of the taxa. Geographic distribution of the Cicer taxa appears to be closely related to the Anatolian Diagonal. As a result of this study, four new endemic taxa were added and evaluated for the first time.