Population structure and association analysis of heat stress relevant traits in chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.).

Understanding genetic diversity and population structure is prerequisite to broaden the cultivated base of any crop. In the current investigation, we report discovery of a total of 319 alleles by assaying 81 SSRs on 71 chickpea genotypes. The cluster analysis based on Jaccard coefficient and unweighted neighbor joining algorithm categorized all genotypes into two major clusters. Cultivars grown within the same agro-climatic zones were clustered together, whereas the remaining genotypes particularly advanced breeding lines and accessions assigned to another cluster. Population structure analysis separated the entire collection into two subpopulations ( K  = 2) and the clustering pattern remained in close agreement with those of distance-based methods. Importantly, we also discovered marker trait association for membrane stability index (MSI) and leaf chlorophyll content measured as SPAD chlorophyll meter reading (SCMR), the two important physiological parameters indicative of heat stress (HS) tolerance in chickpea. Association analysis using both general linear and mixed linear models of the mean phenotypic data of traits recorded in 2016 and 2017 uncovered significant association of NCPGR206 and H2L102 with the MSI trait. Likewise, SSR markers GA9, TR31 and TA113 exhibited significant association with SCMR trait. The genomic regions putatively linked with two traits may be investigated in greater detail to further improve knowledge about the genetic architecture of HS tolerance in chickpea.