Phylogenetic inference applied to germplasm bank characterization and interspecific breeding in passionfruit

Abstract Interspecific crosses between the more than 520 Passiflora species may or may not be compatible. The sequences ITS, matK, psbA-trnH, rbcL and trnL-F were used to confirm species identity and to estimate the genetic distances among 48 Passiflora accessions of a germplasm bank. Twenty species were used for crosses within and between distinct Passiflora subgenera. The phylogenetic resolution based on ITS data was superior to that of any single chloroplast marker, recommending it as a DNA barcode for this genus. However, the tree topology based on Bayesian phylogenetic analysis using the combination of the four chloroplast markers possessed greater support for subclades within the subgenus Passiflora, which contains more species of interest for breeders. We could not identify a clear cutoff value of pairwise Kimura two-parameter (K2P) distances to predict success or failure of crosses. Rather, the clustering of species pairs together within the same or closely related phylogenetic subclades predicted the probability of wide cross compatibility more reliably.