Investigation of the Origin of Aronia mitschurinii using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis

Abstract

<jats:p><jats:italic>Aronia</jats:italic> Medik., commonly known as chokeberry, is a genus of deciduous, multistemmed, rosaceous shrubs native to eastern North America. Three species of chokeberry are commonly accepted, <jats:italic>A. arbutifolia</jats:italic> (L.) Pers., red chokeberry, <jats:italic>A. melanocarpa</jats:italic> (Michx.) Elliott, black chokeberry, and <jats:italic>A. prunifolia</jats:italic> (Marshall) Rehder, or purple chokeberry. In Europe, a fourth species of human origin is recognized as <jats:italic>Aronia mitschurinii</jats:italic> A.K.Skvortsov &amp; Maitul. In North America this type of <jats:italic>Aronia</jats:italic> is described as cultivars of <jats:italic>A. melanocarpa</jats:italic>, including ‘Viking’, ‘Nero’, and ‘Aron’. This species is characterized by near homogeneity of the population, tetraploidy, and a distinct morphology with more robust stems, wider leaf blades, and larger fruits than wild populations of <jats:italic>A. melanocarpa</jats:italic>. It has been proposed that this genotype originated from Russian pomologist Ivan Michurin’s early 20th century experiments involving <jats:italic>Aronia</jats:italic> × <jats:italic>Sorbus</jats:italic> hybridization. In this study we used amplified fragment length polymorphic (AFLP) markers to elucidate the relationships of <jats:italic>A. mitschurinii</jats:italic> to wild North American <jats:italic>Aronia</jats:italic>, ×<jats:italic>Sorbaronia</jats:italic> C.K. Schneid, <jats:italic>Sorbus</jats:italic> L., and six additional genera from subtribe Pyrinae (Rosaceae). Data from seven primer combinations were interpreted by the NTSYSpc software package into a similarity matrix using Jaccard’s coefficient. Clustering of AFLP similarity data using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) identified <jats:italic>A. mitschurinii</jats:italic> as distinct from wild <jats:italic>Aronia</jats:italic>, grouping it close to ×<jats:italic>Sorbaronia fallax</jats:italic> C. K. Schneid. and ×<jats:italic>Sorbaronia</jats:italic> ‘Ivan’s Beauty’. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) also demonstrated a relationship between <jats:italic>A. mitschurinii</jats:italic>, ×<jats:italic>Sorbaronia fallax</jats:italic>, a ×<jats:italic>Sorbaronia</jats:italic> × <jats:italic>Aronia</jats:italic> backcross and compound-leaved <jats:italic>Sorbus</jats:italic>.</jats:p>

Sexual and Apomictic Seed Reproduction in Aronia Species with Different Ploidy Levels

“…A subset of 20 Aronia accessions [five A. melanocarpa (2·), four A. melanocarpa (4·), three A. prunifolia (3·), four A. prunifolia (4·), three A. arbutifolia (4·), and one A. mitschurinii (4·)] were used for AFLP analysis. Genomic DNA was extracted following the protocol outlined in Leonard et al (2013). The quality and concentration of extracted DNA were determined using a NanoDrop-1000 spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific, Willington, DE).…”

“…Native to eastern regions in North America, the genus Aronia is a group of deciduous shrubs in the Rosaceae family, subtribe Pyrinae. The Pyrinae subtribe has a base chromosome count of n = 17 (Postman, 2011), and Aronia species are commonly found as diploids (2n = 2x = 34) and tetraploids (2n = 4x = 68) with some occurrence of triploids (Brand, 2010;Hovmalm et al, 2004;Leonard et al, 2013). Polyploidization events in Aronia likely resulted from the fusion of unreduced gametes from the same or different species to produce autopolyploids and allopolyploids, respectively.…”

“…A fourth species of Aronia has been recognized as A. mitschurinii [(A.K. Skvortsov & Maitul) tetraploid], and it is used in commercial fruit production, usually as the cultivars Viking or Nero (Leonard et al, 2013). However, genetic marker and phenotypic data suggest that nearly all A. mitschurinii cultivars, an intergeneric hybrid involving A. melanocarpa · Sorbus aucuparia L. (Leonard et al, 2013;Skvortsov and Mautulina, 1982), are genetically identical and likely renames of a single genotype (J.D.…”

“…A number of molecular marker techniques such as random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), intersimple sequence repeat, and cpDNA marker analysis have been popular in identifying apomixis in plants (Arnholdt-Schmitt, 2000;Hovmalm et al, 2004;Ludwig et al, 2013;Robertson et al, 2010;Smolik et al, 2011). AFLP analysis often has been preferred over other molecular methods for its efficiency (Leonard et al, 2013;Lubell et al, 2008;Obae and Brand, 2013). The AFLP technique has proven to be a more cost-effective way of producing a large number of markers (Mueller and Wolfenbarger, 1999).…”

Microsatellite Markers for Aronia melanocarpa (Black Chokeberry) and Their Transferability to Other Aronia Species

“…The large-fruited forms of Aronia grown for fruit production represent a fourth species called Aronia mitschurinii (Jeppsson, 2000;Skvortsov and Maitulina, 1982;Skvortsov et al, 1983). Aronia mitschurinii has been shown to be an intergeneric hybrid between Aronia and Sorbus (Leonard et al, 2013).…”