## 1 Introduction  
Based on estimation by UN-FAO, the global demand for agricultural products will increase by 50% by 2050 [1]. Meeting this challenge will require significant improvement in the rates of genetic gain in grain yield for cereal crops such as wheat, rice, barley, and maize, as well as the development of new cultivars that adapted to different environments and their stresses. Undoubtedly, wheat is one of the key cereals that supplies the main portion of food demand worldwide. Durum wheat (_Triticum turgiatum_ L. var. _durum_ Desf. ), with a genomic constitution of AABB, is an economically important tetraploid cereal crop widely cultivated in the Mediterranean basin with a yearly production average of 40 million tonnes [2]. According to the International Grains Council [3], durum wheat comprises 5% of total wheat production over a cultivation area of 16 million hectares worldwide [3]. Bread and durum wheat together account for about 20% of calories and protein consumed by humans and are therefore important components of the diet [4, 5]. In durum wheat's primary cultivation area in the Mediterranean basin, crop productivity is strongly affected by various environmental stresses, such as drought, salinity, heat, etc. Moreover, recent changes in climate have exacerbated these negative effects on durum wheat production. Biotic stresses can also reduce the productivity of durum wheat in this region [6]. Among the many biotic stresses affecting the crop, stripe rust or yellow rust (causal agent: _Puccinia vitiformis_ Westend. f.  
sp. _tritici_ Erikss. (_Pst_)) can be particularly devastating. When the plants are attacked by this disease, their leaves sustain severe damage, disrupting energy capture and contributing to premature senescence. Losses in grain yield due to stripe rust can be as high as 70% during epidemics [7; 8; 9]. In many countries, resistance to stripe rust is one of the most important priorities in wheat breeding programs. Resistance to stripe rust of wheat is usually classified into two categories: (i) seedling resistance (also called all-stage resistance or ASR) and (ii) adult plant resistance (APR) [10]. Seedling resistance confers a higher resistance level than APR, but is race-specific and therefore easily overcome by new virulence types arising in pathogen populations [11]. In contrast, APR is best recognized in mature plants, is partial in its effect, non-race-specific, and more durable. Over 84 \(Yr\) (yellow rust) resistance genes have described in wheat, of which only 12 have been identified in durum wheat [12; 13]. Tetraploid wheats such as \(T\). _dicocoides_, and \(T\). _turgidium_ possess a high level of genetic diversity for agromonically important traits and may be useful as sources of stripe rust resistance genes [14]. Indeed, several important \(Yr\) genes have been described in durum wheat, including _Yr15_ (\(T\). _dicocoides_), _Yr26_ (\(T\). _turgidium_), _Yr35_, and _Yr36_ (\(T\). _dicocoides_), etc. [13]. Over the last few decades, many other genes and quantitative trait loci (QTL) for stripe rust resistance have been identified and are being used in wheat breeding programs [15]. These resistances are critical for ensuring reliable production of durum wheat under the threat of future stripe rust epidemics. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) is a genomic tool for detecting associations between target traits and genetic variants based on linkage disequilibrium (LD) in natural populations. Obtaining information on the genetic architecture of traits in a short period of time and at a lower cost are the main advantages for using GWAS in breeding programs [15]. This genetic approach has been successfully used in many studies of human, animal, and plant research. In many crops, GWAS has been widely applied for identifying QTLs for agronomic traits such as grain yield and its related components, biochemical activities, root system architecture, physiological features as well as tolerance/resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses [16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23].