Morphological and Genetic Variations in Moringa Oleifera Lam. (Moringaceae) Accessions From Three Sites In Luzon, Philippines
Date of Award
12-1-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Biology
First Advisor
Vivian A. Panes, PhD
Abstract
Moringa oleifera, known locally as malunggay, has many uses as alternative medicine, food source and raw material for various industries. It has been studied extensively, mostly to validate its efficiency as an alternative medicine for various ailments. Very few studies have focused on confirming the identity and inferring the relationships of M. oleifera accessions found in the Philippines using genetic markers along with morphological characterization and assessments. This study introduces an integrative approach for species identification and phylogenetic analysis wherein morphological and ecological data are utilized in combination with molecular data in the form of DNA barcodes. In this study, M. oleifera accessions from Benguet, SBE Farms in Rosales, Pangasinan and Ateneo de Manila University-Loyola Schools Campus in Quezon City were collected and assessed morphologically. The environmental conditions and soil parameters in each sampling site were also measured. These three sites have relatively different environments and M. oleifera in each site experienced different cultivation and farming practices. To infer the relationships of these collected accessions, genomic DNA from all the samples were extracted using Plant DNAzolTM and Potassium Ethyl Xanthogenate amplified the gene sequences matK, rbcL, and ITS using polymerase chain reaction, and sequenced through Sanger sequencing. The resulting sequences were used to construct phylogenetic trees. Closely related species Carica papaya and Moringa peregrina were used as outgroup species. Hierarchical clustering of the morphometric characters grouped the accessions into three clusters where different accessions from different sites clustered together. This was analogous to the results of the canonical variate analysis which determined which characteristics delineate the accessions according to sampling site. These results showed that there is an overlap in the morphometric characteristics of accessions from different sampling sites. Meanwhile, phylogenetic analysis revealed that M. oleifera accessions were closely related to each other even if they were collected from different sites with different environmental conditions, and experienced different cultivation and farming practices. This study shows that plants of the same species with different morphological characteristics and growth environments still show molecular and genetic similarities.
Recommended Citation
Alviar, Julienne Erika R., (2023). Morphological and Genetic Variations in Moringa Oleifera Lam. (Moringaceae) Accessions From Three Sites In Luzon, Philippines. Archīum.ATENEO.
https://archium.ateneo.edu/theses-dissertations/847
