| Abstract: | Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) is cultivated by many indigenous and
traditional communities from Amazonia to Central America for its edible fruits, and
is currently important for its heart-of-palm. The objective of this study was to
investigate the mating system of peach palm, as this is important for conservation
and breeding. Eight microsatellite loci were used to genotype 24 open-pollinated
progenies from three populations of the Pampa Hermosa landrace maintained in a
progeny trial for genetic improvement. Both the multi-locus outcrossing rates (0.95
to 0.99) and the progeny level multi-locus outcrossing rates (0.9 to 1.0) were high,
indicating that peach palm is predominantly allogamous. The outcrossing rates among
relatives were significantly different from zero (0.101 to 0.202), providing evidence
for considerable biparental inbreeding within populations, probably due to farmers
planting seeds of a small number of open-pollinated progenies in the same plot. The
correlations of paternity estimates were low (0.051 to 0.112), suggesting a large
number of pollen sources (9 to 20) participating in pollination of individual fruit
bunches. Effective population size estimates suggest that current germplasm
collections are insufficient for long-term ex situ conservation. As
with most underutilized crops, on farm conservation is the most important component
of an integrated conservation strategy. |
