Abstract
CapsicumUse in Cambodia: The Continental Region of Southeast Asia Is Not Related to the Dispersal Route ofC. frutescensin the Ryukyu Islands. The local nomenclature and use of Capsicum by Khmer and other ethnic groups in Cambodia and the distribution of the diagnostic ShDH-B isozyme pattern of C. frutescens were studied. People in Cambodia use Capsicum in various ways, not only as a condiment but also as a vegetable, a medicine, and a colorant, and in popular beliefs, agricultural rituals, taboos, and rice malt. The findings showed that the ShDH-B phenotype may not have occurred as a mutation in Asia but in the Americas and then was introduced to Asia. Also, the ShDH-B phenotype is distributed in the insular regions of Southeast and East Asia and Oceania, but seems not to be distributed in the continental region of Southeast Asia. One possible hypothesis is that C. frutescens possessing the ShDH-B phenotype was introduced directly from the Americas via Oceania to the Philippines, and it thereafter dispersed into the insular regions.
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Acknowledgments
We thank all of the interviewees in Cambodia for their great hospitality, kindness, and openness. We also thank Dr. N. Yamamoto, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan, for providing seeds of many accessions of genus Capsicum in Central and South America and other regions (he collected these accessions in the 1960s and 1970s, and these seeds are also stored in the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences GeneBank, Japan [Yamamoto 1978]). We are also grateful to the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, National Research Council of Thailand, National University of Laos, and National Museum of the Philippines for providing us with opportunities for this investigation. This work was partly supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Model building in rural development for the promotion of agro-processing business and meeting market needs in Cambodia, Project No. 20405045).
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Received 6 April 2010; accepted 6 October 2010.
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Yamamoto, S., Matsumoto, T. & Nawata, E. Capsicum Use in Cambodia: The Continental Region of Southeast Asia Is Not Related to the Dispersal Route of C. frutescens in the Ryukyu Islands. Econ Bot 65, 27–43 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-010-9142-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-010-9142-z