LAUSR

Dioscorea, commonly known as yam, is an economically, socially, and culturally-relevant tuber crop in many tropical countries. This study aimed to characterize the genetic diversity of Dioscorea alata L. and related species from Colombia (42 D. alata L., 6 D. bulbifera L., 3 D. rotundata Poir., and 3 D. trifida L. f.) through seven intersimple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. The plant material was collected in five departments of Colombia. The seven ISSR generated 164 bands that showed high polymorphism (83.62%). Nei-Li genetic diversity coefficient (0.66) and Shannon information index (0.2636) revealed a high level of genetic diversity. The 54 genotypes were grouped into six groups according to geographic location but not by species. We found moderate genetic differentiation (Gst = 0.13) and high gene flow (Nm = 2.7367). The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed higher variation (86%) within groups than among groups (14%). Our results suggest that the high genetic diversity in yam in Colombia can be exploited in future work on crop improvement.