Allozyme divergence and evolution in the genus Lens

The genus Lens includes 5 taxonomic species:L. culinaris is cultivated and L. orientalis, L. odemensis, L. ervoides, and L. nigricans are wild. All the species are annual and almost exlusively selfers. The wild lentils are distributed over a large geographical area and form small disjunct populations which are composed of a small number of plants. 67 Lens populations were assayed electrophoretically for 9 enzyme systems; 15 enzymic genes with 37 alleles were identified. The genetic distances (D) measured between the pairs of populations indicated a significantly greater similarity between populations belonging to the same taxonomic species. Assuming the populations represent a random sample of the variability in each of the species the genetic distances (D) between the 5 taxa were calculated. The shortest genetic distance was found between L. orientalis and L. culinaris. Another significant feature of the data is the apparent isolation of L. nigricans from the other 4 species. The genetic distances between the Lens species are compared to the patterns of crossability barriers between them.