Molecular-genetic analysis for validation of peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunt) landraces using RAPD markers

Numerous landraces of peach palm ( Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes ) have been described in the Neotropics and are conserved in a genebank of INPA. We used RAPD markers to analyze the genetic diversity of eight peach palm landraces and two wild populations. Eight primers generated 124 markers; 101 markers were polymorphic (81.5 %). Observed heterozygosity was 0.38 and polymorphism was 93 %, both slightly higher than in previous studies. Amazonian landraces presented high heterozygosity (0.30) and a percentage of polymorphism (87,8 %) similar to Central American landraces (0.29 and 83,5 %, respectively), different from previous studies, which found Central American landraces to have lower values than Amazonian landraces. The structure of the dendrogram with Nei’s genetic distance was similar to that of previous studies, with minor differences. The two wild populations were grouped far from the landraces, suggesting that they did not participate in the domestication of the cultivated populations.