Landraces of snake melon, an ancient Middle Eastern crop, reveal extensive morphological and DNA diversity for potential genetic improvement

Background Snake melon ( Cucumis melo var. flexuosus , “Faqqous”) is a traditional and ancient vegetable in the Mediterranean area. A collection of landraces from 42 grower fields in Israel and Palestinian territories was grown and characterized in a “Common Garden” rain-fed experiment, at the morph...

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Published in:BMC genetics Vol. 19; no. 1; p. 34
Main Authors: Omari, Samer, Kamenir, Yuri, Benichou, Jennifer I. C., Pariente, Sarah, Sela, Hanan, Perl-Treves, Rafael
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London BioMed Central 23.05.2018
BioMed Central Ltd
Springer Nature B.V
BMC
Subjects:
Animal Genetics and Genomics
Biological diversity
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Breeding
climatic factors
Crops, Agricultural - anatomy & histology
Crops, Agricultural - genetics
cross pollination
Cucumis melo
Cucumis melo - anatomy & histology
Cucumis melo - genetics
Cucumis melo subsp. melo var. flexuosus
Cucumis sativus
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
Domestication
Experiments
Fruits
Gardens & gardening
Gene flow
Genetic aspects
Genetic distance
Genetic diversity
genetic improvement
Genetic Variation
Genetics and Population Dynamics
genome
Genomes
Germplasm
Heterozygosity
Horticulture
Israel
Landraces
Life Sciences
Mediterranean region
melons
Microbial Genetics and Genomics
Morphology
Muskmelon
Phenotype
Plant Breeding
Plant Genetics and Genomics
Plant population genetics
Plant resistance
Pollination
Population
Population structure
Quantitative Trait, Heritable
quantitative traits
Research Article
Seeds
Selection, Genetic
Single-nucleotide polymorphism
Snake melon
temperature
Triticum durum
vegetables
Vigor
Australia
Israel
Mediterranean region
Population structure
Germplasm
Genetic diversity
Snake melon
Landraces
Cucumis melo
ISSN:1471-2156, 1471-2156
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Background Snake melon ( Cucumis melo var. flexuosus , “Faqqous”) is a traditional and ancient vegetable in the Mediterranean area. A collection of landraces from 42 grower fields in Israel and Palestinian territories was grown and characterized in a “Common Garden” rain-fed experiment, at the morphological-horticultural and molecular level using seq-DArT markers. Results The different landraces (“populations”) showed extensive variation in morphology and quantitative traits such as yield and femaleness, and clustered into four horticultural varieties. Yield was assessed by five harvests along the season, with middle harvests producing the highest yields. Yield correlated with early vigor, and with femaleness, but not with late vigor. At the molecular level, 2784 SNP were produced and > 90% were mapped to the melon genome. Populations were very polymorphic (46–72% of the markers biallelic in a 4 individuals sample), and observed heterozygosity was higher than the expected, suggesting gene flow among populations and extensive cross pollination among individuals in the field. Genetic distances between landraces were significantly correlated with the geographical distance between collecting sites, and with long term March precipitation average; variation in yield correlated with April temperature maxima. Conclusions The extensive variation suggests that selection of local snake melon could result in yield improvement. Correlations between traits and climatic variables could suggest local adaptation of landraces to the diverse environment in which they evolved. This study stresses the importance of preserving this germplasm, and its potential for breeding better snake melons as an heirloom crop in our region.
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ISSN:1471-2156
1471-2156
DOI:10.1186/s12863-018-0619-6