Comparison of morphological and molecular genetic distances of maize inbreds

Due to an unknown mechanism of genetic control and great environmental effects in the process of trait expression, morphological markers are often considered unreliable indicators of genetic relationships. Morphological characterization of 19 maize inbreds was done according to the UPOV descriptor, while molecular characterization was performed with RAPD markers. Based on the estimation of phenotypes according to the UPOV descriptor, the squared Euclidean distance was calculated and then, on the basis of this distance, a morphological similarity matrix was formed. Jaccard similarity coefficients were calculated on the basis of presence absence of bands on gels in the RAPD analysis. When data were standardized, the comparison between morphological and genetic similarity of observed maize inbreds was done. The correlations varied from 0.47 (inbred L 217) to 0.76 (inbred L 86). The average value of correlations for all studied inbreds amounted to 0.64. Furthermore, the results of the cluster analysis for both markers, molecular and morphological, had high concordance with pedigree data. Environmental effects were decreased in morphological markers (according to the UPOV descriptor) by rescaling a measurement scale from a scale to an ordinal level of measurement and in such a way results of morphological markers approached results of molecular markers in the estimation of the genetic distance (GD) of maize inbred lines.