Morphological and molecular evaluation of the Far East fruit genetic resources of Lonicera caerulea L.—vegetation, ethnobotany, use and conservation

• Published in: Genetic resources and crop evolution Vol. 66; no. 1; pp. 121 - 141
• Main Authors: Holubec, V., Smekalova, T., Leisova-Svobodova, L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 31-01-2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agriculture; Amplified fragment length polymorphism; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Cluster analysis; Conservation; Cultivars; Cultivation; Ecological monitoring; Ecotypes; Fruits; Genetic resources; Genotypes; Life Sciences; Lonicera caerulea; Lonicera caerulea kamtschatica; Natural & organic foods; Organoleptic evaluation; Phenotyping; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; Population differentiation; Research Article; Resource conservation; Supermarkets; Geographical distribution; Sakhalin; Honeyberry; Blue honeysuckle; Haskap; Kamchatka; Genetic diversity; L. s.l; Kuril Islands; In situ conservation
• ISSN: 0925-9864; 1573-5109
• DOI: 10.1007/s10722-018-0701-y

Blue honeysuckle,
Lonicera caerulea
L. s.l. has a high nutritional and medicinal value of the fruits and a very high organoleptic evaluation may enable to fill gaps in the health food market. A joint project was undertaken in the north-eastern part of its distribution in Kamchatka and Sakhalin. The localities were characterised ecologically, phytosociological relevés were noted and threat factors were assessed as a prerequisite for in situ conservation. Ninety-one samples were collected for herbarium, propagation in vitro and molecular characterisation. An additional 20 available Russian fruit cultivars were evaluated for comparison with ecotypes. The sites of blue honeysuckle differ ecologically and geobotanically between Kamchatka and Sakhalin. Phenotyping on sites and in cultivation revealed a great diversity in morphologic characters. It is possible to distinguish between genotypes from Sakhalin and Kamchatka by a combination of characters and thus our data support the taxonomic concept on the subspecific level. It is possible to classify the found genotypes of
Lonicera caerulea
into two geographical subspecies:
L. caerulea
subsp.
kamtschatica
(Pojark.) Plekhanova, and another subspecies,
L. caerulea
L. subsp.
ochotensis
Smekal., Holubec et Svobodova, subsp. nova, with distribution in Sakhalin and the adjacent Kuril Islands. Cluster analysis and Principal Coordinate analysis based on AFLP data indicate remarkable differences between
L. caerulea
populations from Kamchatka and Sakhalin. It was supported also by AMOVA analysis and by the exact test of population differentiation (
p
 < 0.01). The top 12 genotypes were selected based on fruit characters, 10 from Kamchatka and 2 from Sakhalin for further use in breeding.