ABSTRACT
Understanding the genomic relationships among species is important to systematists, evolutionary biologists, cytogeneticists, molecular biologists, and plant breeders. The taxonomic nomenclature of species and their evolutionary relationships can be rened by cytogenetic evidences such as chromosome morphology (karyotypes), crossability, hybrid viability, meiotic chromosome pairing, and molecular (isozymes, RFLP, RAPD, chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA, and other methods) approaches. Phylogenetic relationships among species can be understood more precisely by a multidisciplinary approach rather than through reliance on a single technique (Jauhar, 1990, 1996; Jauhar et al., 1991; Singh et al., 1992a). For example, van der Maesen (1986) combined the genus Atylosia with the genus Cajanus based on morphological, cytological, and chemo-taxonomic data. However, the chromosome pairing and molecular methods to establish genomic relationships among species will be the main theme of this chapter.
