ChileanJAR

The Chilean wild strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis L. Duch.) is a native species of Chile that was domesticated before the arrival of the Spanish. This species is one of the progenitors of the commercial strawberry (F. x ananassa), and is widely distributed throughout the country in variable agroecological systems. Apparently, these diverse habitats have forced this species to develop a high variability of morphological and agronomic traits. The objectives of this work were: a) to determine the genetic diversity of a representative sample of the Chilean strawberry using biochemical and molecular markers; b) to compare this information by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) diversity within the same accessions; and c) to determine the feasibility of using this information for a breeding improvement program. Eighty-three Chilean wild accessions were analyzed by three isozyme systems, glucose phosphate isomerase (GPI), leucine amino peptidase (LAP) and phosphoglucomutase (PGM), and sixty-one of them were analyzed by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). The results indicated a low level of genetic diversity, only a few accessions were polymorphic for LAP and GPI. The AFLP analysis also detected a low level of polymorphism among the accessions evaluated. The results and their implications for future genetic improvement of the species are discussed.