Insight into the wild origin, migration and domestication history of the fine flavour Nacional Theobroma cacao L. variety from Ecuador.

ABSTRACT: Ecuador's economic history has been closely linked to Theobroma cacao L cultivation, and specifically to the native fine flavour Nacional cocoa variety. The original Nacional cocoa trees are presently in danger of extinction due to foreign germplasm introductions. In a previous work, a few non-introgressed Nacional types were identified as potential founders of the modern Ecuadorian cocoa population, but so far their origin could not be formally identified. In order to determine the putative centre of origin of Nacional and trace its domestication history, we used 80 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to analyse the relationships between these potential Nacional founders and 169 wild and cultivated cocoa accessions from South and Central America. The highest genetic similarity was observ

SUBMITTER: Loor Solorzano RG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3492346 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature