Genetic diversity and conservation of genetic resources in autochthonous Latin American fruit trees. A case study in Annonaceae (DICONFRU)

José Ignacio Hormaza Urroz, María Herrero Romero, Heimo Rainer, Federico Albertazzi, Heidi Villalobos, Margarita Palmieri, Luis Felipe León Solares, Gustavo Adolfo Fontecha Sandoval.

Recent findings suggest that the custard apple’s (A. cherimola) main origin should be more accurately placed in Mesoamerica. This discovery has important implications for the movement of fruit tree material in the Pre-Columbian Americas. The project will explore this hypothesis by using molecular tools in tandem with Geographic Information Systems. It will start from an investigation of the germplasm of custard apples and phylogenetically close species in Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. The results obtained through this project will elucidate the distribution of the species’ genetic diversity in Mesoamerica, permitting comparisons to be made with their diversity in the Andean region. Also, the approach can be extrapolated to similar studies in other fruit tree species underused in the Americas.