MORINGA GENETIC DIVERSITY FROM GERMPLASM BANK USING RAPD MARKERS

The Moringa (Moringa oleifera Lam.) is a tree species with the known value of food, medicine and water treatment, and is promising for bioenergy use. Our objective was to evaluate, using RAPD markers, the genetic diversity of sixteen accessions from Germplasm Bank (BAG) of Embrapa Coastal Tablelands, Sergipe, Brazil. We estimate the diversity indices, and genetic similarity between accessions. The Shannon index and the index of genetic diversity (H) were 0.33 and 0.22, respectively. We observed by Jaccard similarity that, the accessions MO1 and MO12 are the most similar (0.27), and MO13 and MO16 are the most divergent (0.69). By UPGMA and PCoA groupings, we identified that MO1, MO2, MO12 and MO13 are genetically isolated. The results are important in designing strategies for conservation, but because of low diversity detected in this investigation, new activities of collection should be realized, with integration and characterization of new accessions, to ensure the ever increasing diversity of the collection.