552 Comparison of Genetic Diversity in between Two Germplasm Banks Containing Lycopersicon esculentum Accessions

Worldwide, there are cuurently more than 60 germplasm banks that contain tomato ( Lycopersicon esculentum ) collections ranging is size from a few dozen to several thousands of accessions. In the utilization of these genetic resources sampling from only one germplasm bank may result in limiting available genetic diversity, whereas sampling from several germplasm banks may result in unnecessary redundancy. The current lack of knowledge regarding the relative magnitudes of genetic diversity contained within different collections makes it difficult to develop a core collection that maximizes genetic diversity. Two large tomato collections are housed at the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC), Sanhua, Taiwan, R.O.C., and the Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Enseoanza (CATIE), Turrialba, Costa Rica. Ninety-six accessions from CATIE and 102 accessions from AVRDC were randomly sampled from each base collection. The total of 198 accessions were charcterized for 103 polymorphic RAPD molecular marker bands. The results indicated that the two germplam banks sampled different genetic diversity. In addition, the magnitude of genetic diversity was greater in the AVRDC collection compared to CATIE.