[en] [en] BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Plant breeders are increasingly turning to crop wild relatives (CWRs) to ensure food security in a rapidly changing environment. However, CWR populations are confronted with various human-induced threats, including hybridisation with their nearby cultivated crops. This might be especially a problem for wild coffee species, which often occur near coffee cultivation areas. Here, we briefly review the evidence for wild Coffea arabica (cultivated as Arabica coffee) and Coffea canephora (cultivated as Robusta coffee) and then focussed on C. canephora in the Yangambi region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, we examined the geographical distribution of cultivated C. canephora and the incidence of hybridisation between cultivated and wild individuals within the rainforest.
METHODS: We collected 71 C. canephora individuals from home gardens and 12 C. canephora individuals from the tropical rainforest in the Yangambi region and genotyped those with Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS). We compared those fingerprints with existing GBS data from 388 C. canephora individuals from natural tropical rainforests and the INERA Coffee Collection, a Robusta coffee field gene bank and the most likely source of cultivated genotypes in the area. We then established robust diagnostic fingerprints that genetically differentiate cultivated from wild coffee, identified cultivated-wild hybrids, and mapped their geographical position in the rainforest.
KEY RESULTS: We identified cultivated genotypes and cultivated-wild hybrids in zones with clear anthropogenic activity, and where cultivated C. canephora in the home gardens may serve as a source for crop-to-wild gene flow. We found relatively few hybrids and backcrosses in the rainforests.
CONCLUSIONS: The cultivation of C. canephora in close proximity to its wild gene pool has led to cultivated genotypes and cultivated-wild hybrids appearing within the natural habitats of C. canephora. Yet, given the high genetic similarity between the cultivated and wild gene pool, together with the relatively low incidence of hybridisation, our results indicate that the overall impact in terms of risk of introgression remains limited so far.
Disciplines :
Genetics & genetic processes
Author, co-author :
Verleysen, Lauren ✱; Division of Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ; Plant Sciences Unit, Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Melle, Belgium
Depecker, Jonas ✱; Division of Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ; Meise Botanic Garden, Meise, Belgium ; KU Leuven Plant Institute, Leuven, Belgium
Bollen, Robrecht; Division of Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ; Meise Botanic Garden, Meise, Belgium
Asimonyio, Justin; Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversité et Université de Kisangani, Kisangani, DR Congo
Tumaini Hatangi, Yves ; Université de Liège - ULiège > TERRA Research Centre ; Meise Botanic Garden ; University of Kisangani
Kambale, Jean-Léon; Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversité et Université de Kisangani, Kisangani, DR Congo
Mwanga Mwanga, Ithe; Centre de Recherche en Science Naturelles, Lwiro, DR Congo
Ebele, Tshimi; Institut National des Etudes et Recherches Agronomique, Yangambi, DR Congo
Dhed'a, Benoit; Université de Kisangani, Kisangani, DR Congo
Ruttink, Tom ; Plant Sciences Unit, Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Melle, Belgium ; Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Vandelook, Filip; Division of Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ; Meise Botanic Garden, Meise, Belgium
Honnay, Olivier; Division of Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ; KU Leuven Plant Institute, Leuven, Belgium
