Abstract
Coffea liberica originally found near Monrovia in Liberia is the third commercially exploited coffee species known for its larger cherries, compared with those of Coffea arabica or Coffea canephora; it contributes less than one per cent of the marketed coffee. The latter reflects in part the beverage quality being inferior to that of Arabica and in part the agronomical performance not satisfying when compared with those of Robusta. However, this species remains still attracting for some genetical characteristic like certain pest resistance genes in breeding programs as the resistance to coffee leaf rust conferred by the SH3 locus.
Currently, all Liberica taxa were grouped in one species, C. liberica W. Bull ex Hiern that included two varieties, C. liberica var. liberica, C. liberica var. dewevrei (De Wild. and T. Durand) Le Brun, and a form C. liberica f. bwambensis Bridson. The taxonomic differences between the two varieties still raise doubts that leave the question ‘species or variety?‘ still open. For this reason, the search of possible traits or molecular markers able to discriminate and shed light on these doubts has never stopped. In this paper we focus our attention on two characteristics not yet investigated in detail: silverskin tissue and seed diterpenes.
For the first time, an in-depth microscopic study of silverskin morphology was used to discriminate liberica from dewevrei coupled with the diterpenes characterization, the major components of the unsaponifiable fraction of seed lipids, already known as molecular markers and efficiently used for coffee species authentication purposes.
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Data Availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information file.
Abbreviations
- OM:
-
Optical Microscope
- 16OMC:
-
16-O-methylcafestol
- SEM:
-
Scanning Electron Microscope
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Coffea Biological Resources Center (BRC Coffea, maintened by IRD and CIRAD in Reunion Island) for providing the plant material. Special thanks to Thierry Joët.
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L.N. Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Data curation. P.C. Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Data curation, Methodology, Validation. E.G. Methodology, Data curation, Validation.
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LEGEND OF ESM_1
A detailed list, including origin country, accession type and source of material of all samples under investigation is provided in the Online Resource 1.
LEGEND OF ESM_2
The diterpenes characterizing the unsaponifiable fraction of C. liberica lipids (cafestol, kahweol and 16-O-methylcafestol) have been quantified (mg/kg). Quantitative data described in the Results section are reported in detail in the Online Resource 2.
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Crisafulli, P., Guercia, E. & Navarini, L. Discrimination of Coffea liberica and Coffea liberica var. Dewevrei: Silverskin Morphological Traits and seed Diterpenes Content. Tropical Plant Biol. 15, 247–259 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-022-09319-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-022-09319-5