Genetic diversity revealed in the apomictic fruit species Garcinia mangostana L. (mangosteen)

Abstract

The novel molecular marker technique Randomly Amplified DNA Fingerprinting (RAF)was used to survey genetic relationships between 37 accessions of the tropical fruit G. mangostana (mangosteen) and among 11 accessions from eight other Garcinia species. Although mangosteen is believed to reproduce exclusively through apomixis, our results show that considerable genetic diversity exists within G. mangostana and between other Garcinia species. Among the 37G. mangostana accessions examined, nine different genotypes were identified which clustered into three distinct groups based on correspondence analysis(reciprocal averaging). For 26 (70%) of the accessions no marker variation was detected over 530 loci screened. A further eight (22%) accessions exhibited very low levels of variation (0.2-1%) suggesting at least one well conserved mangosteen genotype. The remaining three accessions (8%) showed extensive variation (22-31%)compared with the majority of accessions. The three mangosteen groups were 63-70% dissimilar to the other Garciniaspecies investigated. The genetic diversity identified in this research will assist in the conservation of Garciniagermplasm and provides a valuable framework for the genetic improvement of mangosteen