engleski

Genetic diversity of wild and cultivated olives in Croatia

The cultivation of olive is widely spread in Croatian coastal area and islands while wild olive (Olea europaea subsp. europaea var. sylvestris) populations can be found only in some specific sites, mainly on islands, where olive cultivation is limited or absent. Ninety trees from four wild olive populations sampled in Brijuni, Pag, Hvar and Lastovo islands and 20 most important Croatian olive cultivars were analyzed by eight microsatellite markers in order to test their diversity and genetic relationships. The SSR markers revealed high level of diversity with a total of 124 alleles and mean values of Ho 0, 811 and He 0, 818. Factorial correspondence analysis (FCA) revealed the separation of the samples into two groups. The first group consisted of cultivated olives and wild olive trees belonging to populations from the islands of Brijuni and Hvar while the second was comprised of wild olives from the islands of Pag and Lastovo. These results suggest that the wild olives from the islands of Pag and Lastovo could be considered as genuine wild olives or true oleasters while the populations from the islands of Brijuni and Hvar probably represent feral forms (olivasters), which may be seedlings of the cultivated olives or products of hybridization between the true oleasters and cultivars. The high diversity found in wild olive trees and the presence of true oleasters may be of great interest for future genetic improvement programs in Croatia?

Olea europaea L.; feral forms; genetic relationship; SSR; FCA

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