In order to investigate different species of root-knot nematodes associated with vegetable production in southern regions of Iran, 37 populations of the most predominant species, Meloidogyne javanica, were recovered. Morphological and morphometric studies were carried on the characters of females, males, J2s and perineal patterns. Species-specific Sequence Characterized Amplified Region (SCAR) primers confirmed morphological studies, and all these populations produced specific band in 670 bp using Fjav and Rjav primers. Genetic diversity of different populations was studied by Inter Simple Sequence Repeats (ISSR) and Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers implementing 10 primers for each approach. Results revealed a relatively low genetic diversity (the percentage of polymorphic bands were 19.08 and 24.60 for ISSR and RAPD, respectively). The analyses of molecular variance indicated that the variation resulted from genotypic variations within region and variances among regions are 81% and 19% for RAPD, and 86% and 14% for ISSR, respectively. On the other hand, F
ST
and Nm values are 0.140 and 1.535 for ISSR while these values are 0.188 and 1.079 for RAPD. So it can be concluded that there is a great deal of gene flow between populations due to the movement of plant material contaminated with nematodes, which results in high mixing between populations. ISSR and RAPD datasets failed to group populations according to their geographic region. There were no pathotypes or other intraspecific biological entities observed in the species.
