Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of the Brachiaria brizantha Germplasm

  • Published:
Tropical Plant Biology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Brachiaria brizantha (Hochst. ex A. Rich.) Stapf. (syn. Urochloa brizantha (Hochst. ex A. Rich.) R.D. Webster) is a species used primarily as forage in tropical America and Southeast Asia. B. brizantha has been extensively researched since the 1980s with the initiation of the Tropical Forages Breeding Program conducted by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária; EMBRAPA), holding one of the largest germplasm collections in the world. This work has identified 15 new microsatellite markers for this species, which have been used in addition to five previously reported markers, to estimate the genetic similarities among 172 accessions and six cultivars of this species. Similarity index values ranged from 0.40 to 1.00. Two duplications were found in the germplasm. A Bayesian analysis performed using the STRUCTURE 2.3.3 program revealed the presence of three clusters with different allelic pools. This analysis is valuable for the performance of crosses to explore heterosis; however, the mode of reproduction of the accessions and ploidy barriers must be observed for effective exploration. A grouping analysis using the neighbor-joining method was consistent with the STRUCTURE analysis, and a combination approach suggested that this germplasm collection does not exhibit considerable genetic variability despite the presence of three distinct allelic pools. The lack of correlation between the genetic and geographic distances is also discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

AMOVA:

analysis of molecular variance

CIAT:

Center for Tropical Agriculture

CTAB:

cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide

cv.:

cultivar

DNA:

deoxyribonucleic acid

EBC:

EMBRAPA Beef Cattle

EMBRAPA:

Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation

MCMC:

Markov-Chain Monte Carlo

NJ:

neighbor joining

PCR:

polymerase chain reaction

PIC:

polymorphism information content

RAPD:

random amplification of polymorphic DNA

SDS-PAGE:

sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis

SSR:

simple sequence repeats

UPGMA:

unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic mean

References

  • Ambiel AC, Guaberto LM, Vanderlei TM, Neto NBM (2008) RAPD grouping of accesses and cultivars of three Brachiaria species. Acta Sci Agron 30(4):457–464

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Assis GML (2001) Análise discriminante e divergência genética em espécies de Brachiaria. Dissertation, University of Viçosa

  • de Assis GML, Euclydes RP, Cruz CD, do Valle CB (2003) Discriminação de Espécies de Brachiaria Baseada em Diferentes Grupos de Caracteres Morfológicos. Revista Brasileira de Zootecnia 32(3):576–584

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown JS, Schnell RJ, Power EJ, Douglas SL, Kuhn DN (2007) Analysis of clonal germplasm from five Saccharum species: S. barberi, S. robustum, S. officinarum, S. sinense and S. spontaneum: a study of inter- and intra species relationships using microsatellite markers. Genet Resour Crop Evol 54:627–648

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Chiari L, da Rocha M, do Valle CB, Salgado LR (2008) Variabilidade genética em acessos e cultivares de quatro espécies de Brachiaria estimada por marcadores RAPD. Boletim de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento n°. 24. Embrapa Beef Cattle, Campo Grande

  • CIAT. Forages Database (2010) International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. http://isa.ciat.cgiar.org/urg/main.do Cited 18 Nov 2010

  • Coelho ASG (2000) BOOD version. 3.0. Avaliação de dendrogramas baseados em estimativas de distâncias/similaridades genéticas através do procedimento de bootstrap. Departamento de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás. Goiânia, Brazil.

  • Cordeiro GM, Pan YB, Henry RJ (2003) Sugarcane microsatellites for the assessment of genetic diversity in sugarcane germplasm. Plant Sci 165(1):181–189

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Creste S, Tulmann Neto A, Figueira A (2001) Detection of single sequence repeat polymorphisms in denaturing polyacrylamide sequencing gels by silver staining. Plant Mol Biol Rep 19:299–306

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dall’Agnol M, Schifino-Wittmann MT (2005) Apomixia, genética e melhoramento de plantas. Revista Brasileira de Agrociência 11:127–133

    Google Scholar 

  • De Wet JMJ (1980) Origins of polyploids. In: Lewis WH (ed) Polyploidy: biological relevance, 1st edn. Plenum, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobrovolskaya O, Saleh U, Malysheva-Otto L, Roder MS, Borner A (2005) Rationalising germplasm collections: a case study for wheat. Theor Appl Genet 111(7):1322–1329

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Doyle JJ, Doyle JL (1987) A rapid DNA isolation procedure for small quantities of fresh leaf tissue. Phytochem Bull 19:11–15

    Google Scholar 

  • Ersts, PJ (2009) Geographic Distance Matrix Generator Software.Version 1.2.3. American Museum of Natural History, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. http://biodiversityinformatics.amnh.org/open_source/gdmg Cited 15 Dec 2010

  • Evanno G, Regnaut S, Goudet J (2005) Detecting the number of clusters of individuals using the software STRUCTURE: a simulation study. Mol Ecol 14(8):2611–2620

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Excoffier L, Laval G, Schneider S (2005) Arlequin (version 3.0): An integrated software package for population genetics data analysis. Evol Bioinformatics 1:47–50. http://www.la-press.com/arlequin-version-30-an-integrated-software-package-for-population-gene-a188 Cited 20 November 2010

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Falush D, Stephens M, Pritchard JK (2003) Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data: linked loci and correlated allele frequencies. Genetics 164(4):1567–1587

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ferguson JE, Crowder LV (1974) Cytology and breeding behavior of Brachiaria ruziziensis Germain et Evrard. Crop Sci 14(6):893–895

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrufino A, Lapointe SL (1989) Host plant resistance in Brachiaria grasses to the spittlebug Zulia colombiana. Entomol Exp Appl 51(2):155–162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferreira ME, Moretzsohn MC, Buso GSC (2007) Fundamentos de caracterização molecular de germoplasma vegetal. In: Nass LL (ed) Recursos genéticos vegetais, 1st edn. Embrapa Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia, Brasília

    Google Scholar 

  • Fukuda WMG, Costa IRS, Vilarinhos AD, Oliveira RP. (1996) Banco de germoplasma de mandioca: manejo, conservação e caracterização. Documento 68, EMBRAPA-CNPMF, Cruz das Almas

  • Gaitán-Solís E, Duque MC, Edwards KJ, Tohme J (2002) Microsatellite repeats in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris): isolation, characterization, and cross-species amplification in Phaseolus ssp. Crop Sci 42:2128–2136

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaccard P (1908) Nouvelles recherches sur la distribution florale. Bull Soc Vaud Sci Nat 44:223–270

    Google Scholar 

  • Jayamani P, Negrao S, Martins M, Macas B, Oliveira MM (2007) Genetic relatedness of Portuguese rice accessions from diverse origins as assessed by microsatellite markers. Crop Sci 47(2):879–886

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Jungmann L, Francisco PM, Sousa ACB, Paiva J, Valle CB, do Souza AP (2009a) Development of Microssatellite Markers for Brachiaria brizantha and Germplasm Diversity Characterization of this Tropical Forage Grass. In: Yamada T, Spangenberg G (eds) Molecular breeding of forage and turf, 1st edn. Springer Science, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Jungmann L, Sousa ACB, Paiva J, Francisco PM, Vigna BBZ, do Valle CB, Zucchi MI, Souza AP (2009b) Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers for Brachiaria brizantha (Hochst. ex A. Rich.). Stapf Conservat Genet 10(6):1873–1876. doi:10.1007/s10592-009-9839-7

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Jungmann L, Vigna BBZ, Boldrini KR, Sousa ACB, do Valle CB, Resende RMS, Pagliarini MS, Zucchi MI, de Souza AP MI (2010) Genetic diversity and population structure analysis of the tropical pasture grass Brachiaria humidicola based on microsatellites, cytogenetics, morphological traits, and geographical origin. Genome 53:698–709

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Keller-Grein G, Maass BL, Hanson J (1996) Natural variation in Brachiaria and existing germplasm collections. In: Miles JW, Maass BL, do Valle CB (eds) Brachiaria: biology, agronomy and improvement, 1st edn. Embrapa/CIAT, Cali

    Google Scholar 

  • Laborda PR, Oliveira KM, Garcia AA, Paterniani ME, de Souza AP (2005) Tropical maize germplasm: what can we say about its genetic diversity in the light of molecular markers? Theor Appl Genet 111(7):1288–1299

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Levin DA (2002) The role of chromosomal change in plant evolution, 1st edn. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Macedo MCM (2005) Pastagens no ecossistema cerrado: evolução das pesquisas para o desenvolvimento sustentável. In: Reunião Anual da Sociedade brasileira de Zootecnia. 42a Reunião Anual da Sociedade Brasileira de Zootecnia, Goiânia

  • Macedo MCM (2006) Aspectos edáficos relacionados com a produção de Brachiaria brizantha cultivar Marandu. In: Barbosa RA (ed) Morte de pastos de braquiárias, 1st edn. Embrapa Gado de Corte, Campo Grande

    Google Scholar 

  • Machado Neto NB, Custódio CC, Peniche AGPF (2002) Brachiaria access germplasm distinction using SDS PAGE. Acta Scientiarum 24(5):1439–1445

    Google Scholar 

  • Mantel NA (1967) The detection of disease clustering and a generalized regression approach. Cancer Res 27:209–220

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mendes-Bonato AB, Pagliarini MS, Forli F, do Valle CB, Penteado MIO (2002) Chromosome numbers and microsporogenesis in Brachiaria brizantha (Gramineae). Euphytica 125(3):419–425

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miles JW, do Valle CB, Rao IM, Euclides VP (2004) Brachiariagrasses. In: Al-Amoodi LK, Moser LE, Burson BL, Sollenberger LE (eds) Warm-season (C4) grasses, agronomy monograph n°. 45. American Society of Agronomy, Madison

    Google Scholar 

  • Nunes SG, Boock A, Penteado MIO, Gomes DT (1984) Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu. Documentos no. 21. Embrapa Gado de Corte, Campo Grande

    Google Scholar 

  • Peng JH, Bai Y, Haley SD, Lapitan NLV (2009) Microsatellite-based molecular diversity of bread wheat germplasm and association mapping of wheat resistance to the Russian wheat aphid. Genetica 135(1):95–122

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Penteado MIO, Santos ACM, Rodrigues IF, do Valle CB, Seixas MAC, Esteves A (2000) Determinação de ploidia e quantidadede DNA em diferentes espécies do gênero Brachiaria. Boletim de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento no. 11. Embrapa Gado de Corte, Campo Grande

    Google Scholar 

  • Perrier X, Jacquemoud-Collet JP (2006) DARwin software: Dissimilarity Analysis and Representation for Windows (version 5.0.157). http://darwin.cirad.fr/darwin. Cited 01 April 2009

  • Perrier X, Flori A, Bonnot F (2003) Data analysis methods. In: Hamon P, Seguin M, Perrier X, Glaszmann JC (eds) Genetic diversity of cultivated tropical plants. Enfield, Science Publishers, Montpellier

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinheiro AA, Pozzobon MT, do Valle CB, Penteado MIO, Carneiro VTC (2000) Duplication of the chromosome number of diploid Brachiaria brizantha plants using colchicine. Plant Cell Rep 19:274–278

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pinto LR, Oliveira KM, Marconi T, Garcia AAF, Ulian EC, de Souza AP (2006) Characterization of novel sugarcane expressed sequence tag microsatellites and their comparison with genomic SSRs. Plant Breed 125(4):378–384

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard JK, Stephens M, Donnelly P (2000) Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data. Genetics 155(2):945–959

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ren FG, Lu BR, Li SQ, Huang JY, Zhu YG (2003) A comparative study of genetic relationships among the AA-genome of Oryza species using RAPD and SSR markers. Theor Appl Genet 108(1):113–120

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Renvoize SA, Clayton WD, Kabuye CHS (1996) Morphology, taxonomy, and natural distribution of Brachiaria (Trin.) Griseb. In: Miles JW, Maass BL, do Valle CB (eds) Brachiaria: biology, agronomy and improvement, 1st edn. Embrapa/CIAT, Cali

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohlf FJ (1997) NTSYS-PC: numerical taxonomy and multivariate analyses systems. Exeter Software, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Rungis D, Llewellyn D, Dennis ES, Lyon BR (2005) Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers reveal low levels of polymorphism between cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) cultivars. Aust J Agr Res 56(3):301–307

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Simioni C, do Valle CB (2009) Chromosome duplication in Brachiaria (A. Rich.) Stapf allows intraspecific crosses. Crop Breed Appl Biotechnol 9:328–334

    Google Scholar 

  • Valle CB do, Euclides VPB, Pereira JM, Valério JR, Pagliarini MS, Macedo MCM, Leite GG, Lourenço AJ, Fernandes CD, Dias Filho MB, Lempp B, Pott A, Souza MA (2004) O Capim-Xaraés (Brachiaria brizantha cv. Xaraés) na Diversificação das Pastagens de Braquiária. Documento 149, EMBRAPA-CNPGC, Campo Grande, MS

  • do Valle CB, Simioni C, Resende RMS, Jank L (2008) Melhoramento genético de Brachiaria. In: Resende RMS, do Valle CB, Jank L (eds) Melhoramento de Forrageiras Tropicais, 1st edn. Embrapa Gado de Corte, Campo Grande

    Google Scholar 

  • Valois AC, Nass LL, Goes M (2001) Conservação ex situ de recursos genéticos vegetais. In: Nass LL, Valois AC, Melo IS, Valadares-Inglis MC (eds) Recursos genéticos e melhoramento, 1st edn. Fundação MT, Rondonópolis

    Google Scholar 

  • Varshney RK, Graner A, Sorrells ME (2005) Genic microsatellite markers in plants: features and applications. Trends Biotech 23:48–55

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Xu YB, Beachell H, McCouch SR (2004) A marker-based approach to broadening the genetic base of rice in the USA. Crop Sci 44(6):1947–1959

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was a cooperative effort between EMBRAPA Beef Cattle and the University of Campinas. The authors would like to thank all the personnel from both institutions who made this cooperation possible. We would also like to thank Dr. Lucimara Chiari and BSc. Gisele Leguizamón for helping with plant collection and DNA extraction, Dr. Fernanda Witt Cidade for helping with analyses and BSc. Giovana Maranhão Bettiol Coaracy for helping with ArcGIS version 9.0. The authors were funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) (Project 05/51010-0), by undergraduate fellowships (Vigna, B.B.Z. and Francisco, P.M.) and by a research fellowship awarded to Souza, A. P. from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Bianca Baccili Zanotto Vigna

    Present address: Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation - EMBRAPA Cattle-Southeast, CP 339, CEP 13560-970, São Carlos, SP, Brazil

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering Center, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), CP 6010, CEP 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Bianca Baccili Zanotto Vigna, Patrícia Mara Francisco & Anete Pereira de Souza

  2. Plant Biotechnology Laboratory, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation - EMBRAPA Beef Cattle, CP 154, CEP 79002-970, Campo Grande, MS, Brazil

    Letícia Jungmann & Cacilda Borges do Valle

  3. Agronomic Institute of Campinas – Polo Apta Sul, Rod. SP 127 km 30, CP 28, CEP 13400-970, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil

    Maria Imaculada Zucchi

  4. Biology Institute, Plant Biology Department (DBV), University of Campinas (UNICAMP), CP 6109, CEP 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Anete Pereira de Souza

Authors
  1. Bianca Baccili Zanotto Vigna
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Letícia Jungmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Patrícia Mara Francisco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Maria Imaculada Zucchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Cacilda Borges do Valle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Anete Pereira de Souza
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anete Pereira de Souza.

Additional information

Communicated by Desiree M. Hautea

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Figure 1

A grouping pattern revealed by the unrooted neighbor-joining method, based on Jaccard's similarity, for 172 accessions and six cultivars of Brachiaria brizantha preserved at the EMBRAPA Beef Cattle germplasm collection. The genotypes are named according to annotated numbers listed in Table 1 and colored according to ploidy data from Supplementary Table 3. Diploid genotypes are red colored, tetraploid genotypes are green colored, pentaploid genotypes are blue colored and hexaploids are yellow colored. Black colored genotypes are the one that do not have ploidy data available. (DOC 32 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

Jaccard´s similarity coefficients among 178 genotypes of Brachiaria brizantha evaluated through microsatellite markers. Individuals are identified according to their annotated number (Table 1) (XLS 303 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

The membership coefficient (Q) from STRUCTURE analysis based on microsatellite markers. (XLS 47 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

Ploidy of the Brachiaria brizantha accessions evaluated in this study (XLS 36 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Vigna, B.B.Z., Jungmann, L., Francisco, P.M. et al. Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of the Brachiaria brizantha Germplasm. Tropical Plant Biol. 4, 157–169 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-011-9078-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-011-9078-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation