The Gene Pool of Saccharum Species and Their Improvement
Current taxonomy divides sugarcane into six species, two of which are wild and always recognized (Saccharum spontaneum L. and Saccharum robustum Brandes and Jewiet ex Grassl). The other species are cultivated and classified variously. Of the four domestic
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The Gene Pool of Saccharum Species and Their Improvement Andrew H. Paterson, Paul H. Moore, and Tom L. Tew
Abstract Current taxonomy divides sugarcane into six species, two of which are wild and always recognized (Saccharum spontaneum L. and Saccharum robustum Brandes and Jewiet ex Grassl). The other species are cultivated and classified variously. Of the four domesticated species of Saccharum, S. officinarum L. was the first named and is the primary species for production of sugar. Recent genomic data for evaluating genetic diversity within Saccharum suggests relationships among accessions that may ultimately produce a definitive classification of the species. Sugarcane breeders have long realized that germplasm diversity is essential for sustained crop improvement, with accessions from at least 31 separate expeditions deposited in the two world collections as genetic reservoirs. Cultivated sugarcanes of today are complex interspecific hybrids primarily between Saccharum officinarum, known as the noble cane, and Saccharum spontaneum, with contributions from S. robustum, S. sinense, S. barberi, and related grass genera such as Miscanthus, Narenga, and Erianthus. Sugarcane has long been recognized as one of the world’s most efficient crops in converting solar energy into chemical energy harvestable as biomass, and is of growing interest as a biofactory for production of fossil fuel alternatives and other high-value bioproducts.
A.H. Paterson (*) Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory, Departments of Crop and Soil Science, Plant Biology, and Genetics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] P.H. Moore Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, Kunia, HI, USA T.L. Tew USDA, ARS, Houma, LA, USA A.H. Paterson (ed.), Genomics of the Saccharinae, Plant Genetics and Genomics: Crops and Models 11, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-5947-8_3, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
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Keywords Sugar cane • Interspecific hybrid • Polyploid • Aneuploid • Domestication • Nobilization • Energy cane • Biofactory
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Singular Properties of the Species (or Its Members) Taxonomy
Sugarcane is the common name given to a group of cultivated, sucrose-storing, large tropical grasses that have been classified variously depending on the criteria employed and the taxonomic convention of the time. The original classification of cultivated sugarcane as Saccharum officinarum L. by Linnaeus in 1753 established the genus Saccharum L. for sugarcane. However, the genus Saccharum was expanded to include many species that, with the exception of inflorescence and floral morphologies, have little in common with sugarcane. For example, a search of the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) database http://www.itis.gov lists 23 species of Saccharum of which 7 are no longer accepted while only 5 are listed as a species of wild or domesticated sugarcane. The more extensive Kew GrassBase database http://www.kew.org/data/grasses-db.html lists 37 species of Saccharum of which 4 are
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