A study on phylogenetic relationship among Heliconia and related genera

Heliconia varieties/types along with related genera were subjected to RAPD analysis for studying the genetic diversity and to construct phylogenetic tree based on banding pattern. Twenty primers were selected from 120 RAPD primers screened initially. The selected primers produced a high degree of polymorphism. A total of 156 amplified bands were produced, in which, 154 were polymorphic, with an average of 7.7 polymorphic bands per primer and accounting for 99.05% polymorphism. Number of bands per primer varied from 2 (OPN-17) to 13 (OPB-17). Polymorphic Information Content ranged from 0.06 in OPN-17 to 0.50 in OPY-19 with an average of 0.31. The highest resolving power of 9.58 was calculated for OPQ-03, which was closely followed by 9.52 for OPY-19. The lowest resolving power (Rp) of 0.12 was calculated for OPN-17. Average Rp for 20 primers was found to be 4.29. In the dendrogram, the genotypes which belong to related genera species, viz., Canna indica (Red), Canna indica (Orange), Musa spp. (Grand Naine), Maranta arundinacea, Alpinia purpurata, Zingiber officinale and Curcuma longa are all out groups, while all the 26 Heliconia genotypes grouped in clusters E and F at coefficient value of 0.19. Thus, it proved that Heliconia forms a distinct genus in the botanical order Zingiberales.