Tomato Phenotypic Diversity Determined by Combined Approaches of Conventional and High-Throughput Tomato Analyzer Phenotyping

Abstract

Morphological variation in vegetative and fruit traits is a key determinant in unraveling phenotypic diversity. This study was designed to assess phenotypic diversity in tomatoes and examine intra- and intervarietal groups’ variability using 28 conventional descriptors (CDs) and 47 Tomato Analyzer (TA) descriptors related to plant and fruit morphometry. Comprehensive phenotyping of 150 accessions representing 21 countries discerned noticeable variability for CD vegetative traits and TA quantified fruit features, such as shape, size, and color. Hierarchical cluster analysis divided the accessions into 10 distinct classes based on fruit shape and size. Multivariate analysis was used to assess divergence in variable traits among populations. Eight principal components with an eigenvalue >1 were identified by factor analysis, which contributed 87.5% variation to the total cumulative variance with the first two components contributing 32.0% and 18.1% variance, respectively. The relationship between vegetative and fruit descriptors was explained by respective CD and TA correlation networks. There was a strong positive correlation between fruit shape and size whereas negative correlations were between fruit shape index, internal eccentricity, and proximal end shape. The combined approach of CD and TA phenotyping allowed us to unravel the phenotypic diversity of vegetative and reproductive trait variation evaluated at pre- and post-harvest stages.

Phytochemical Assessment of Native Ecuadorian Peppers (Capsicum spp.) and Correlation Analysis to Fruit Phenomics

“…Regarding the TA analysis, descriptors under the categories of basic measurements, shape index, and latitudinal section, exhibited the highest contribution to the variance. Similar findings were reported not only for pepper [23,24] but also for tomato [20,27] and eggplant [21]. ANOVA analysis revealed that C. annuum statistically diverged from the other species, exhibiting the highest values for traits related to size, while C. frutescens showed the lowest measurements for identical parameters.…”

“…FWE and FLE significantly and positively correlated with every TA attribute related to fruit size but also with TPA, TPT, and PPB. Associations among fruit weight, shape, and size were further highlighted in tomato by Nankar et al [27]. Conversely, FWI and FWT displayed a significantly positive interaction only with WMW, MW, and TPT.…”

“…This freeware allows the semi-automatic and highly precise scoring of a large number of quantitative fruit traits from scanned images of fruit sections [ 16 , 17 ]. It has been successfully employed for tomato [ 18 , 19 , 20 ], eggplant [ 21 , 22 ], and pepper [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ] and the diversity measured by fruit TA parameters demonstrated to be higher than that reflected by conventional descriptors [ 20 , 25 , 27 ]. Apart from the importance of adequate phenotyping, the increasing interest of consumers for tastier and healthier foods, make it necessary to investigate pepper landraces for the bioactive composition of fruits [ 28 ].…”

A step towards Balkan Capsicum annuum L. core collection: Phenotypic and biochemical characterization of 180 accessions for agronomic, fruit quality, and virus resistance traits

“…Agro-morphological field data and fruit compositional quality data were analyzed using SAS, and R programs. The manuscript structure was inspired by previous work of biomorphological pepper diversity [ 45 ], bean phenotypic collection [ 19 ], and tomato fruit diversity [ 46 ].…”

“…Phenotypic variation of representative plant, flower, and fruit descriptors and percentage representation in the population. The phenotypic variation analysis is inspired from the earlier work of Nankar et al [46] on tomato phenotypic diversity.…”