Interspecific relationships of Alocasia revealed by AFLP analysis

Abstract

SummaryThis study analysed genetic relationships of 23 Alocasia cultivars across 17 species using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers. Six primer sets, selected from an initial screening of 48, generated a total of 578 scorable AFLP fragments of which 334 (58.4%) were polymorphic. All cultivars were clearly detected by their AFLP fingerprints. A dendrogram was constructed using the unweighted pair-group method of arithmetic averages (UPGMA). Principal coordinated analysis (PCOA) was carried out to show multiple dimensional distributions of cultivars. Both UPGMA and PCOA analyses separated the 23 cultivars into three clusters. Cluster I comprises 16 cultivars, mainly derived from A. crassifolia, A. cuprea, A. longiloba, A. grandis, A. guttata, A. plumbea, A. macrorrhiza, A. micholitziana, and A. villeneuvei or hybrids of A. lowii A. sanderiana and A. cuprea A. veitchii. Jaccard’s similarity coefficients for these species ranged from 0.43 to 0.77. Cluster II contains six cultivars, which include A. cadieri, A. cucullata, A. gageana, A. odora, and A. portei. Jaccard’s similarity coefficients varied from 0.52 to 0.83. There is only one cultivar, ‘Hilo Beauty’ in the cluster III, whose low similarity (0.21) with the rest of the Alocasia species may suggest that it could actually belong to another genus of Araceae. Based on documented interspecific hybrids, it appears that hybrids were developed from species exclusively within the identified clusters. This may suggest that Alocasia species sharing high Jaccard’s similarity coefficients are more likely to be intercrossable. The interspecific relationships detected by the AFLP analysis could provide the genetic basis for selecting parents for future hybrid development.