Domestication Syndrome in Caimito (Chrysophyllum cainito L.)

Fruit and Seed Characteristics

Bibliographic Data

ID8920922
AuthorsIngrid M Parker (0000-0002-4847-1827, University of California, Santa Cruz, corresponding author), Isis Montalvo Lopez (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute), Isis López, Jennifer J Petersen (University of California, Davis), Natalia Anaya (Universidad de Panamá), Luis Cubilla-Ríos (0000-0003-1666-8948, Universidad de Panamá), Daniel Potter (0000-0002-9855-0355, University of California, Davis)
Year2010
Volume64
Issue2
Pages161-175
Publication date2010-05-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomic Botany (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0001 • E-ISSN: 1874-9364
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12231-010-9121-4
PMID20543881
PMCIDPMC2882042
OpenAlexW2053527752
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited43

Domestication Syndrome in Caimito (Chrysophyllum cainitoL.): Fruit and Seed Characteristics: The process of domestication is understudied and poorly known for many tropical fruit tree crops. The star apple or caimito tree (Chrysophyllum cainito L., Sapotaceae) is cultivated throughout the New World tropics for its edible fruits. We studied this species in central Panama, where it grows wild in tropical moist forests and is also commonly cultivated in backyard gardens. Using fruits collected over two harvest seasons, we tested the hypothesis that cultivated individuals of C. cainito show distinctive fruit and seed characteristics associated with domestication relative to wild types. We found that cultivated fruits were significantly and substantially larger and allocated more to pulp and less to exocarp than wild fruits. The pulp of cultivated fruits was less acidic; also, the pulp had lower concentrations of phenolics and higher concentrations of sugar. The seeds were larger and more numerous and were less defended with phenolics in cultivated than in wild fruits. Discriminant Analysis showed that, among the many significant differences, fruit size and sugar concentration drove the great majority of the variance distinguishing wild from cultivated classes. Variance of pulp phenolics among individuals was significantly higher among wild trees than among cultivated trees, while variance of fruit mass and seed number was significantly higher among cultivated trees. Most traits showed strong correlations between years. Overall, we found a clear signature of a domestication syndrome in the fruits of cultivated caimito in Panama

Agronomy · Biology · Botany · Domestication · Panama · Plant ecology · Pulp (tooth · Sapotaceae · Sugar · Tropics · African Botany and Ecology Studies · Botanical Research and Applications · Ecology · Horticulture · Plant and animal studies

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access