Dioscorea bulbifera is an edible yam specie with aerial bulbils. Assessing the genetic diversity of D. bulbifera accession for cultivation and breeding purposes is essential for it genetic improvement, especially where the crop faces minimal attention. The aims of this study was to assess the genetic diversity of Dioscorea bulbifera accessions collected from Nigeria and accessions maintained at the genebank of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan. Accessions were profiled using quatitative and qualitative phenotypic traits and Diversity Array Technology SNP-markers. Multivariate analysis based phenotypic traits revealed high variability among the evaluated accessions and all phenotypic traits assessed were useful in discriminating the aerial yam accessions. Clustering analysis based phenotypic traits revealed the presence of two well defined clusters. Using DArT-Seq marker, the 94 accessions were classified into three genetic group through the admixture and the phylogeny analysis. The comparision of phenotypic and genotypic clustering revealed inconsistency membership across the two clustering methods. The study established a baseline for the selection of parental lines from the genetic groups for genetic improvement of the D. bulbifera.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306631

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Paterne AGREhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1231-2530

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306631

Biotech and Plant Breeding

Agronomy; Genetic Improvement; Plant Breeding; Plant Genetic Resources

Dioscorea Bulbifera; Genetic Diversity; Yams; Phenotypes; Breeding

Africa; West Africa

Nigeria

Headquarters and Western Africa Hub

PLoS ONE