Genetic Diversity Analysis of Jatropha Species from Costa Rica Using AFLP Markers

Abstract

The genetic diversity from species of the genus Jatropha collected from Costa Rica was analyzed by AFLP (amplified fragments length polymorphism). The study consisted of 114 accessions from 15 populations of 4 different species: J. curcas, J. costaricensis, J. gossypifolia and J. stevensii. These were collected from different locations in Costa Rica. Three different primers were used, resulting in 428 loci, and they were classified in three categories: unique and double bands (UBD), rare bands (RB) and shared bands (SB). The UBD were excluded for a total of 339 polymorphic loci used for the UPGMA dendrogram and principal component analysis (PCA). The species that obtained the highest average of polymorphic loci was J. curcas, which obtained the highest percentage of polymorphic loci (80.24%), followed by J. gossypifolia (79.35%), J. costaricensis (78.76%), and finally J. stevensii (40.71%). The average for the polymorphic loci was of 69.76%. Thus, the phylogeny of the Jatropha species in Costa Rica was elucidated, showing J. curcas more related to J. stevensii and this one with J. costaricensis, and J. gossypifolia as the most distant member of the genus. For the best of our knowledge this is the first report of a genetic analysis of J. costaricensis and J. stevensii. The obtained molecular evidence showed high levels of polymorphisms in the present study compared with reports from Africa, India, and China. The molecular diversity estimated in our analysis, together with agronomical or morphological data, can be very useful for plant breeding programs, given the importance of Jatropha species in oil production. Interestingly, Central American Jatropha material can be used to increase the genetic base of J. curcas populations localized in Asia and Africa, where reduced genetic diversity has been reported.

Short Communication: Cross-species amplification of microsatellite markers developed for Jatropha curcas within five species of Jatropha

“…However, our study did not support Prabarakan and Sujatha's (1999) finding since the percentage of polymorphism was quite high between these species (62.2%), indicating the two species were distantly related and probably were not able to generate interspecific hybrid. On the other hand, our findings agreed with Avendaño et al (2015), which showed 79.4 polymorphism percentages between J. curcas and J. gossypifolia.…”

Genetic Diversity in <i>Jatropha platyphylla</i> Accessions Based on Morphological Traits and Inter-Simple Sequence Repeats Molecular Markers

“…The high diversity found in Mexican accessions of J. curcas agrees with this investigation [5] [13] [44], which may be because Mexico and Central American is considered the center of origin of the Jatropha genus [45] [46] and has a high endemism [28]. Polymorphism indicates that inter-simple sequence repeats are abundant and highly dispersed through the genome [47].…”

Molecular characterization and genetic diversity ofJatropha curcasL. in Costa Rica

“…Genetic improvement may alleviate this problem; however, characterization of the available germplasm is needed for breeding programs to be efficient ( King et al, 2015 ; Mastan et al, 2012 ). Over the past decade, J. curcas germplasm has been genetically evaluated in India, China, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and Central America ( Avendaño et al, 2015 ; Basha & Sujatha, 2007 ; China Plant BOL Group et al, 2011 ; Montes Osorio et al, 2014 ; Pecina-Quintero et al, 2014 ; Rosado et al, 2010 ; Wen et al, 2010 ). Molecular markers such as RAPDs, ISSRs, AFLPs, genomic simple sequence repeats (G-SSR) and expressed sequence tags-SSR (EST-SSR) have all been used to assess the genetic diversity of J. curcas collections.…”