Genetic diversity of cultivated elephant foot yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius) in Kuningan, West Java as revealed by microsatellite markers

Abstract: Ten microsatellite markers were used to clarify the genetic diversity of cultivated elephant foot yams collected in 13 villages in the Kuningan District, West Java, Indonesia. Each pair of primers generated four to five alleles, with an observed heterozygosity of 0.000-1.000 and an expected heterozygosity of 0.064-0.551. These markers identified seven likely genets (clonal individuals) in the Kuningan population. Of 61 individual plants surveyed in this study, 55 plants distributed throughout the Kuningan District belonged to the same genet, while the another genet represented by a plant (ramet). These ramets were restricted to the villages located on the main road between Kuningan City and Central Java. Cluster analysis shows that the seven genets can be classified into three groups, with two groups showing a restricted distribution in the villages located on the road leading to Central Java. Elephant foot yam plants with berries were rarely observed in the Kuningan District. It is likely that a single genet has become the dominated local cultivar, possibly because of the limited genetic diversity of elephant foot yam in the Kuningan District, its reproduction by clonal propagation and the selection of a specific cultivar by farmers.