Multiple Introduction Events of Cultivated Diospyros Kaki L. of and Native Diospyros Species in Taiwan Inferred by Low Copy Nuclear Markers

Special Article: Plant Biology

Ann Agric Crop Sci. 2023; 8(4): 1140.

Multiple Introduction Events of Cultivated Diospyros Kaki L. of and Native Diospyros Species in Taiwan Inferred by Low Copy Nuclear Markers

Kuan-ting Hsin1#; Ya-Ling Chang5,3#; Chun-Neng Wang1; Jui-Sheng Lai2; Ching-Chang Shiesh3; Huey-Ling Lin3,4*

1Department of Life Science, College of Life Science, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

2Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Council of Agricultural, Taiwan

3Department of Horticulture, National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan

4Department of Horticulture and Innovation and Development Center of Sustainable Agriculture (IDCSA), National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan

5Miaoli District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, Ministry of Agriculture, Taiwan

*Corresponding author: Huey-Ling Lin Department of Horticulture, National Chung Hsing University, 145, Xingda Road, Taichung 40227, Taiwan. Tel: +886-4-22840340; Fax: +886-4-22860574 Email: hllin@dragon.nchu.edu.tw

#These authors have contributed equally to this article.

Received: July 31, 2023 Accepted: August 22, 2023 Published: August 29, 2023

Abstract

Diospyros kaki L. is one of the most important fruits in Taiwan. Cultivated D. kaki cultivars are classified into four types, according to their loss of astringency in ripening fruit and their change in flesh color, namely the Pollination-Constant Non-Astringent (PCNA), the Pollination Variant Non-Astringent (PVNA), the Pollination Variant Astringent (PVA) and the Pollination Constant Astringent (PCA). Recently, persimmon breeders are paying more attention to rootstock selection for successful grafting and agricultural production. To identify suitable rootstock and to trace the origins of extant native Diospyros species in Taiwan, the 10 known native Diospyros species together with four D. kaki cultivars were analyzed by using two low-copy, nuclear-encoded DNA markers, ncpGS and PHYA. There was moderate to strong support for the major nodes within the phylogenetic tree, obtained from both the Maximum-likelihood or the Bayesian inference methods. The constructed D. kaki phylogeny using Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Bayesian Inference (BI) algorithms formed three clades. The most basal clade (clade A) comprised species distributed in the South East Asia , then species distributed in East Asia (clade B), and then D. kaki cultivars (clade C). The extant native Taiwan Diospyros species nested into clade A and B, suggesting a northward migration pattern of native Taiwan Diospyros species. In addition, the species D. oldhamii formed a sister clade with the D. kaki cultivars, suggesting that D. oldhamii may be a compatible rootstock. Lastly, D. kaki cultivars sampled from growers that were acquaintances formed corresponding subclades within clade C (C-1, C-2 and C-3), suggesting a high discrimination ability of the ncpGS and PHYA molecular markers used here.

Keywords: Diospyros kaki, ncpGS, PhyA, phylogeny, persimmon

Introduction

The Diospyros genus contains over 500 species, making it the largest genus in the Ebenaceae family [1]. The members of genus Diospyros are distributed broadly from tropical to temperate regions. Most Diospyros species are distributed in Asia and the Pacific, making Asia and Oceania its center of diversity [2]. Some species are well known for their edible fruits, such as D. kaki, D. lotus and D. virginiana [3,4], while other species are famous for their timber, like D. ebenum, D. mollis and D. dendo. Moreover, leaves and fruits of some Diospyros species have been used as medicine, e.g. D. kaki and D. lotus [5,6].

D. kaki is the most economically important and widely cultivated species in the world. Cultivars of D. kaki are grown in Australia, Brazil, China, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, and United States of America [7,8]. The geographical origin of the D. kaki species is not yet known. However, wild D. kaki plants have been observed in forests in China, so D. kaki is believed to have originated in China [9]. According to features of the mature fruit (astringency due to tannins, presence of seeds), cultivars are classified into four types, namely 1) Pollination-Constant Non-Astringent (PCNA), 2) Pollination-Variant Non-Astringent (PVNA), 3) pollination-variant astringent (PVA) and 4) Pollination-Constant Astringent (PCA) [9] (Figure 1). Among these four types, the PCNA and PVNA types lose astringency naturally during fruit growth and become edible at maturity, while PVA and PCA types retain astringency at maturity. Further, in the PVNA cultivars, sufficient pollination can enhance the loss of astringency, but insufficient pollination will make the fruits retain astringency at maturity but may be edible when softened. In contrast, PCNA fruit consistently loses its astringency during fruit development, regardless of pollination efficiency. PCNA-type cultivars are important for commercial production of persimmon worldwide since the fruits lose their astringency naturally and do not require post-harvest astringency processing.