Genetic diversity within and between accessions of Elaeis oleifera from the Ecuadorian amazon

Abstract

The species E. oleifera is a promising genetic resource for oil palm breeding programs. The main purpose of this study was to quantify the genetic diversity within and between accessions collected in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Nine microsatellite markers were genotyped in 40 plants from the E. oleifera germplasm bank of INIAP in Ecuador. The number of alleles varied from two to five, with a total of 26 alleles and a mean number of 2.89. The polymorphism information content was 0.35, indicating that all markers were informative and enough to access the variability within and between E. oleifera plants. The average inbreeding coefficient was - 0.03, the mean expected heterozygosity 0.41, the average observed heterozygosity 0.42 and seven of the nine markers were in Hardy – Weinberg equilibrium (HWE). This result shows that the analyzed population was close to the assumed HWE, showing high variability between plants and no inbreeding or sampling effect. The 40 plants were clustered in seven groups differentiated by the Tocher method. Seedlin gs derived from a same accession were grouped separately, indicating variability within the sampled accessions. This variability was illustrated by grouping the 40 plants by the UPGMA method and confirmed by the molecular variance analysis (AMOVA). Of the total variation, 72% was detected among plants within the sampled accessions. These results have implications for breeding purposes and the collection of new E. oleifera germplasm.