Characterization and comprehensive evaluation of phenotypic characters in wild Camellia oleifera germplasm for conservation and breeding

Abstract

Camellia oleifera Abel. is an economically important woody oil plant native to China. To explore the genetic diversity of wild C. oleifera phenotypic traits and effectively protect these germplasm resources, this study provides a thorough evaluation of the phenotypic variability of a cluster of 143 wild C. oleifera germplasm resources. A total of 41 characters, including leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, and oil quality characters, were investigated based on the quantization of physical and chemical descriptors and digital image analysis. The findings revealed significant variations among the 41 characters with a high range of Shannon–Wiener indexes (H′) from 0.07 to 2.19. The coefficient of variation (CV) among 32 quantitative characters ranged from 5.34% to 81.31%, with an average of 27.14%. High genetic diversity was also detected among the 143 germplasm. Based on the analysis of hierarchical clustering, 143 accessions were separated into six categories. All the individuals can be clearly distinguished from each other according to the result of the principal component analysis (PCA). The M-TOPSIS exhaustive evaluation method based on correlation and PCA analyses of 32 quantitative characters was applied for the 143 wild C. oleifera accessions, and the top 10 varieties were identified as YA53, YA13, YA40, YA34, YA57, YA19, YA33, YA41, DZ8, and YA7. This research optimized the germplasm evaluation system and perfected the statistical phenotypic traits for distinctness, uniformity, and stability (DUS) testing. Some top-notch germplasm sources were also screened for oil-tea Camellia breeding.

Comprehensive Evaluation of Apple Germplasm Genetic Diversity on the Basis of 26 Phenotypic Traits

“…A single indicator and evaluation method can only reflect the performance of a certain trait and cannot effectively reflect the comprehensive performance of horticultural crops under natural conditions. Therefore, it is more reliable to use multiple indicators and methods for the comprehensive evaluation of germplasm resources [40]. In this study, we thoroughly evaluated the phenotypic traits of apple germplasm resources using PCA combined with a membership function method.…”

“…To date, scholars within China and internationally have conducted comprehensive evaluations of germplasm resources using the weighted membership function method based on principal component analysis and weight analysis, but most of them have focused on crops [20,23,41]. This approach also has been partially reported in pears [5], wild C. oleifera [40], and Xanthoceras sorbifolium [42].…”

Discovery of genomic regions associated with grain yield and agronomic traits in Bi-parental populations of maize (Zea mays. L) Under optimum and low nitrogen conditions

“…Assessing the performance of maize genotypes under different nitrogen regimes is critical for identifying promising parental lines. Phenotypic evaluations can reveal useful diversity in maize germplasm ( Shitta et al, 2021 ; Chen et al, 2023a ). However, morphological characterizations of genotypes are influenced by both the genotype (G) and environment (E), as well as G × E interaction, and hence may not accurately reflect the genotypic effect of nitrogen utilization per se ( de Carvalho et al, 2012 ).…”

Expression Analysis and Interaction Protein Screening of CoZTL in Camellia oleifera Abel

“…Camellia oleifera Abel. is a woody oil tree of the family Theaceae [1]. The seeds of this plant can be pressed to release tea oil, which has a long history of consumption in China and is well received by consumers.…”