“…In several recent studies using dominant nuclear markers (eg RAPDs, AFLPs and ISSRs), a substantial, but not complete, discrimination was observed between cultivars from various geographical origins and oleasters from populations distributed over the Mediterranean Basin, each represented by a single individual tree, although no genetic marker was identified by the authors to discriminate unambiguously between wild oleasters and the putative feral forms (Angiolillo et al, 1999;Besnard et al, 2001a;Vargas and Kadereit, 2001;Bronzini de Caraffa et al, 2002a, b). Such results were observed even when the oleasters were collected in disturbed areas close to olive groves and were considered as being of feral origin (Angiolillo et al, 1999), and also in feral oleasters growing in Australia, where genuinely wild olive (in O. europaea) is not expected to grow (Mekuria et al, 2002). From the results of the present work, we suggest that the nuclear genetic differentiation observed between oleasters (whatever their origin) and cultivated olive may be attributable mostly to heterozygosity level differences and, very occasionally, to distinct allelic composition between these two fully interfertile partners of the same species.…”