Μελέτη πληθυσμών Salvia fruticosa Mill. και Salvia pomifera L. της Πελοποννήσου ως προς τη χημική σύσταση των αιθέριων ελαίων: διάκριση και ταυτοποίηση των πληθυσμών με χρήση μοριακών δεικτών και εκτίμηση παραγωγικών δυνατοτήτων επιλεγμένων καλλιεργειών (ή κλώνων) για καθορισμό βελτιωτικών στόχων ; Study of Salvia fruticosa L. and Salvia pomifera L. populations of the Peloponnese regarding chemical composition of the essential oil.: discrimination and identification of populations using molecular markers and estimation of productivity of selected crops (or clones) in order to set breeding targets

Sage has been used since antiquity as a herb tea, but also in traditional medicine. Nowadays, it also used in aroma-, food-, feed-, cosmetic- and medicinal industry. The species with the broader distribution in Greece is S. fruticosa (Greek sage), while in lesser and narrower distribution are also found S. officinalis (Dalmatian sage) in the Heperus and το S. pomifera (Cretan or bitter sage) in the Peloponnese, Crete and the Aegean islands. For the purposes of the present work ten populations of S. fruticosa and five populations of S. pomifera from the Peloponnese were studied, regarding their morphological traits and their essential oil and their genetic relationships and distances were evaluated by the means of the molecular markers trnH-psbA, ITS and nine microsatellite markers (SoUZ003, SoUZ005, SoUZ006, SoUZ007, SoUZ009, SoUZ013, SoUZ014, SoUZ016, SoUZ020). All characters as well as the genetic analysis were performed at individual level at 149 individuals of the 15 populations. The influence of the year, season, and plant part on essential oil was also assessed. Moreover, 126 clones of the original plants were successfully created and planted in the Botanical garden of the University of Patras and consequently studied regarding their growth traits and their yield in biomass and essential oil properties. It was found that high variability existed both within and among populations of both species, which was imprinted as much in the yield and the composition of the essential oil, as in the morphological traits and the genotyping with the microsatellite markers of the populations’ individuals. This variability of the morphological traits did not allow the discrimination of S. fruticosa populations, while it was more successful in discriminating the S. pomifera ones, placing 96% of the samples to their population of origin. On the contrary, the genetic variability found using the microsatellite markers, was able to distinguish the most geographically distant populations of S. fruticosa, while it had less ...