Effects of crop domestication on Fragaria spp. functional, defensive and nutritional traits

QUINTERO, CAROLINA; CHAMORRO, MELINA F.; LESCANO, MARÍA N.; SAEZ, AGUSTIN; FERNANDEZ, ANAHÍ R.; REINER, GABRIELA; LANGENHEIM, MARIANA; ROBREDO, NICOLAS; MAZZONI, ARIEL; MATTERA, GABRIELA

Buenos Aires

Congreso; VII Congress of the Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology; 2023

IFIBYNE

The domestication process of plants has favored traits such as biomass in organs of commercial value, often to the detriment of their chemical defenses. As the diversity and content of phytochemicals influence crop organoleptic properties, bioactivity and nutraceutical properties as well as resistance to damage, comparisons of domesticated and wild relatives are key. In this work we proposed to evaluate under common garden conditions differences in a) biomass allocation and functional traits, b) leaf physical and chemical defensive traits, and c) fruit quality (size, color, firmness, content of soluble solids), chemical composition (total and individual phenolics), and antioxidant activity (DPPH inhibition capacity) of two commercial cultivars of strawberries Fragaria × ananassa and three ecotypes of one of its ancestors, the native strawberry: Fragaria chiloensis. In terms of functional traits, we found that domesticated varieties, although twice as large in overall size and biomass, have half the number of leaves per plant; and those leaves have longer petioles and six times larger area and biomass than native varieties. Leaf trichomes are mostly concentrated in the abaxial leaf surface, with natives holding five times more trichomes in the abaxial and 45 times less in the adaxial surface than domesticated varieties. Strawberry crown size, root:shoot ratios, flower size and sex ratio, and leaf toughness and water content were similar across all varieties. In terms of fruit phytochemistry, we found that domesticated varieties have a higher content of total anthocyanins, catechin and fruit firmness; while native strawberries have greater antioxidant activity, higher ellagic acid content and higher total soluble solids. The content of total phenolics and flavonoids did not depend on the origin of the plants. Some of these differential traits such as greater bioactivity, especially of some ecotypes, could be taken into account for the development of new commercial varieties with regional identity.