Association mapping of quality and yield of oil traits in Macaw palm (Acrocomia aculeata)

• Grant number: 19/20307-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: January 01, 2020
• End date: April 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Crop Science
• Principal Investigator: Maria Imaculada Zucchi
• Grantee: Evellyn Giselly de Oliveira Couto
• Host Institution: Agência Paulista de Tecnologia dos Agronegócios (APTA). Secretaria de Agricultura e Abastecimento (São Paulo - Estado). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/23591-7 - Selection of donnor trees of macaúba aiming to biodiesel for forming garden seed and commercial seedlings production preserving genetic variability, AP.TEM

Abstract

Currently, the Macaw palm oil (Acrocomia aculeata) is obtained from vegetal extraction in natural populations that have a big genetic variability. To improve the Macaw palm productivity, a breeding program can significantly increase oil and biofuels production as well as can enable large-scale production of plants. Production of Macaw palm in large-scale can still enables the commercialization of its different products, incipient in the country, which would strengthen the market internal. Due to the genetic variability in Macaw palm population, plants that have high oil yield are of the great concern in plant breeding. So, in order to understand the genetic control of the main characters of interest in the breeding, association mapping studies are an important tool to conduct the choice of the best strategies in plant breeding. In addition, genetic studies such as linkage disequilibrium and effective population size analysis are essential for the future application of genomic selection. In Macaw palm, these methodologies have not yet been implemented what means that scientific results about association of genome with the traits responsible for the oil productivity are important to the understanding of the genetic architecture of this palm. Moreover, association mapping allows detected pleiotropic genomic regions or linked genes using multi-trait analysis, which would facilitate genetic studies and the beginning of plant breeding. The objectives of this study are characterize the population genetic structure, study the genetic architecture for the characteristics related to productivity and oil quality and identify regions of linked or pleiotropic genes. The multi-trait model proposed in the present study and the results achieved with association mapping and genetic approach will be of interest for breeding programs of other palm species. (AU)