Diversity within Cultivated Tomato

VAN DER KNAAP, ESTHER; ANDERSON, CLAIRE; RODRÍGUEZ, GUSTAVO RUBÉN

Genetics, Genomics, and Breeding of Tomato

CRC Press - Taylor & Francis Group

Lugar: Boca Raton, FL; Año: 2013; p. 74 - 91

Cultivated tomato is morphologically more diverse than the wild relatives from which the crop was domesticated. Quantification and employment of the phenotypic diversity in breeding programs require an objective evaluation of morphology. For fruit, the morphological characterization is facilitated by the publicly available software program Tomato Analyzer. Attributes of shape are used to detect quantitative trait loci (QTL) in segregating populations. Tomato Analyzer is also effectively used to classify tomato varieties based on fruit shape. Despite the extensive morphological diversity, genetic diversity among cultivated types is quite low. Recent efforts to identify nucleotide polymorphisms that differentiate cultivated accessions and the cloning of key fruit shape genes has yielded important insights into the selection process of tomato from a small round berry to a large and diversely shaped fruit.