Genetic Diversity of Pyrenophora teres Isolates as Detected by AFLP Analysis

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis has been used to analyse mainly 83 Czech isolates of Pyrenophora teres, P. graminea, P. tritici‐repentis and Helminthosporium sativum. Each species had distinct AFLP profiles. Using 19 primer combinations 948 polymorphic bands were detected. All main clusters in dendrogram correspond to the studied species. Even the two forms of P. teres–P. teres f. teres (PTT) and P. teres f. maculata (PTM) – formed different clusters. Genetic diversity, with regard to the locality and the year of the sample's collection, was analysed separately within the AFLP‐based dendrogram cluster of PTT and PTM. Unweighted pair‐group method (UPGMA) analysis of the 37 isolates of PTT and 30 isolates of PTM, using 469 polymorphic bands, showed that the variability seemed to have been influenced more by the year of sampling than by the geographic origin of the isolate. The presence of intermediate haplotypes with a relatively high number of shared markers between the two groups indicated that hybridization between the forms of P. teres could happen, but it is probably often overlapped by selection pressure or genetic drift.