Abstract
ABSTRACT
Creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.) is an important species to the turfgrass industry because of its adaptation for use in high quality turf stands such as golf course putting greens, tees, and fairways. Creeping bentgrass is a highly outcrossing allotetraploid, making genetic marker development difficult. Genetic markers anchored to miniature inverted‐repeat transposable elements (MITEs) were developed in Agrostis that could be used in genetic linkage mapping, quantitative trait loci studies, or diversity analyses. The FindMITE software program identified 495 candidate MITEs from 16,122 Agrostis DNA sequences. There was evidence of transposition in 79 of the candidate MITEs based on MITE insertional polymorphisms. Genetic markers were developed by MITE‐display, a modified amplified fragment length polymorphism technique that anchors amplified fragments to MITEs. Four MITE‐display primer combinations were tested on a creeping bentgrass experimental mapping population and 139 polymorphic markers were developed with a polymorphic information content of 0.33. Twenty‐eight of the polymorphic genetic markers segregated normally. MITE‐display genetic markers are a new class of genetic markers for studies of the Agrostis genome. These genetic markers target transposable elements and provide an easy method of identifying allelic variation between Agrostis accessions that may be used for diversity studies or genetic linkage map development.