Bactris gasipaes Kunth var. gasipaes complete plastome and phylogenetic analysis

Abstract

Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes (Arecaceae, Palmae) is an economically and socially important plant species for populations across tropical South and Central America. It has been domesticated from its wild variety, B. gasipaes var. chichagui , since pre-Columbian times. In this study, we sequenced the plastome of the cultivated variety, B. gasipaes Kunth var. gasipaes and compared it with the published plastome of the wild variety. The chloroplast sequence obtained was 156,580 bp. The cultivated chloroplast sequence was conserved compared to the wild type sequence with 99.8% of nucleotide identity. We did, however, identify multiple Single Nucleotide Variants (SNVs), insertions, microsatellites and a resolved region of missing nucleotides. A SNV in one of the core barcode markers ( matK ) was detected between the wild and cultivated accessions. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out across the Arecaceae family and compared to previous reports, resulting in an identical topology. This study is a step forward in understanding the genome evolution of this species.

Understanding the Technical-Scientific Gaps of Underutilized Tropical Species: The Case of Bactris gasipaes Kunth

“…gasipaes and var. chichagui demonstrated that the differences between these two varieties are also visualized at the molecular level [ 21 , 22 ]. With the advances of molecular tools and new findings regarding the evolutionary processes, further studies are still required to better understand the infra-specific relationships among the landraces, as well as the revision of B. gasipaes nomenclature [ 18 ].…”