ELECTROPHORETIC ANALYSIS OF DIVERSITY WITHIN CUPRESSUS SEMPERVIRENS L. GROWING IN ISRAEL

ABSTRACT

Isoenzyme variants within Cupressus sempervirens L. planted in Israel have been identified using starch gel electrophoresis of enzymes extracted from the megagametophytic and perisperm seed tissue. Single-tree cone collection from 493 trees growing in 27 populations at holy sites and in plantations planted at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in the country was done in 1986–1987. In 1994 viable seeds were available from only 267; of them, 140 trees were phenotypically identified as var. pyramidalis and 67 as being of var. horizontalis; the other 60 trees were not identified phenotypically. The results gained show that in the planted C. sempervirens L. under investigation 11 (47.8%) out of the 23 gene loci in 13 enzyme systems analyzed were polymorphic; they contain a relatively high gene diversity of 0.479. The genetic distance between the two varieties planted in Israel is 0.007. Differences in allele frequencies between the two varieties occurred only in 5 loci, viz., IDH₂ PGI₂, MDH₃, PGM₁, and ACO₁.