Genetic Divergence in Mango and Obtaining Minimum Efficient Descriptors

Abstract

Mangifera indica (mango) is a typically tropical fruit with considerable economic value. Brazil features a wide variety of cultivars of this fruit, most of which are known under several different names. Indeed, the nomenclature of mango varieties is still quite confusing. Up to now there has been no well-defined scientific principle to differentiate them. The objective of the present work is to compare the different clustering methods in assessing genetic divergence among mango accessions, as well as identify the minimum efficient descriptors for that crop. A total of 20 mango accessions in Cáceres, Mato Grosso state, Brazil were evaluated. When building dissimilarity matrices, the descriptors were divided according to the following groups: leaf, flower/inflorescence, fruit, seed and growth habit/ripening period. With these divisions, combinations were performed among the groups of descriptors. The similarity index was used to obtain the dissimilarity matrices. Later, the accessions were clustered using the methods of Tocher, Ward and UPGMA. The study observed that it was possible to reduce the number of descriptors from 64 to 35, and that the clustering methods were compatible with the study of the genetic diversity of mango.