Proceedings of the XLVI Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Giardini Naxos, Italy - 18/21 September, 2002

ISBN 88-900622-3-1

Poster Abstract - 1.14

ORIGIN OF MINOR OLIVE CULTIVARS BASED UPON AFLP AND MICROSATELLITE POLYMORPHISMS

RICCIOLINI C.*, PANNELLI G.**, PANARA F.***, MUNARI C.****, VARASANO E.*, BALDONI L.*

*) Istituto di Genetica Vegetale-CNR, Sezione di Perugia

**) Istituto Sperimentale di Olivicoltura-MiPAF, Spoleto

***) Dipartimento di Biologia Cellulare e Molecolare, Univ. Perugia

****) Agenzia per la Biodiversità, Città di Castello, Perugia

Olea europaea, AFLP, microsatellites, genetic resource, germplasm, plant domestication

The olive domestication process has been recently investigated by means of numerous molecular markers, and it has been demonstrated that cultivar selection has occurred from the wild Mediterranean olive in different genetic pools and in different areas with further spreading by human moving. Based on chloroplast sequence variation and allozyme polymorphism it was demonstrated that the domesticated olive represents a part of the entire genuinely wild olive populations that persist today and the cross between cultivated olives or between cultivated and wild plants has also occurred at local level during the long history of olive cultivation. Most of the olive cultivars have originated thousand and more years ago and have been vegetatively propagated and distributed within restricted areas. In these areas, beyond main olive varieties, numerous others are present, represented by few or even single trees. This work focuses on their origin and relationships with main cultivars and wild populations and on their role as relicts of previous wider diffusion or as products of recent hybridisations. A wide range of local olive genotypes present in Centre Italy, an area characterized by extreme climatic conditions for the species, has been analysed by means of AFLP and microsatellite markers and data have been compared with those of main varieties diffused all over the Mediterranean area and with numerous wild populations. The results obtained demonstrate that some minor cultivars represent the ancestors of present main cultivars while others derive from intervarietal crosses with the contribution of local cultivars and those diffused in different regions. Relationships with wild populations are also discussed.