Moshgak (Ducrosia anethifolia) is an aromatic medicinal plant of the Apiaceae family that has several applications in food and pharmaceutical industries. Moshgak is naturally outcrossing; however, production of selfed seeds may have many economic and breeding benefits. Given the importance of morphological, phytochemical, and molecular traits, the existence of diversity among populations can be beneficial to identify and introduce superior populations in terms of these traits. One of the strategies to increase the secondary metabolites of the plant is the use of biotic and abiotic elicitors that can affect the metabolic pathways of secondary metabolites and increase their production. This study was done to eva‎luate the genetic diversity and changes in secondary metabolites, physiological and morphological traits of 24 moshgak populations under drought stress during the two consecutive years at a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. In addition, degree of inbreeding depression effect on morphological and phytochemical traits of 20 moshgak populations was investigated. The results of analysis of variance showed that the populations had significant differences in most of the studied traits. Also, the effect of irrigation regimes was significant on the most traits. In addition, a significant decrease was observed in the traits of number of days to flowering, number of days to maturity, plant height, seed yield per plant, components of seed yield per plant, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, total chlorophyll content, carotenoid content, relative water content under drought stress compared to control conditions. On the other hand, drought stress led to increase in some studied traits including antioxidant enzymes (catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, and peroxidase), malondialdehyde, hydrogen peroxide, proline, essential oil content, phenol and flavonoid content, antioxidant activity, polyphenol compounds and essential oil compounds. For genotypic selection, different indices including Tolerance Index (TOL), Susceptibility Index (SSI), Stress Tolerance Index (STI), Mean Productivity (MP), Geometric Mean Productivity (GMP), and Yield Stability Index (YSI) were investigated that MP GMP and STI were more suitable indices to recognize drought tolerant moshgak populations. Based on above mentioned indices, the population of Hormozgan2 was recognized drought tolerant Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis revealed the presence of 23 compounds in which the major constituents were α- pinene and cis-chrysanthenyl acetate. Among populations, the highest increase in cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (21.32 %) was observed in response to drought stress in Abarkuh1. HPLC analysis showed the presence of eight important compounds including galic acid, caffeic acid, vanilic acid, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, luteolin, quercetin, and apigenin in the phenolic extract of the studied populations. Accumulation of these compounds under drought stress was mainly due to increased expression of the key genes involved in their synthesis pathway, as well as the interactions of these genes with the environment. Considering that p-coumaric acid is considered as marker compound for the quality control of moshgak, Abarkuh2, due to high amounts of this compound under stress condition, can be used as a rich antioxidant source in food and pharmaceutical industries.

محمدرضا سبزعليان دستجردي , مهدي رحيم ملك

مصطفي قناديان , احمد ارزاني

قدرت اله سعيدي , مجيد طالبي , محمد مقدم