Abstract

This study performed eco-geographical prospecting on five populations of wild ‘de-sono’ passion fruit plants in the rural zones of five towns from two distinct agroecological units in the state of Bahia. Ripe fruit from plants from these populations that had fallen to the ground were physicochemically characterized and had their phenotypic variability dispersion among the populations estimated via uni- and multivariate variance and grouping. Among them, the five populations presented univariate and multivariate differentiation. The large majority of multivariate contrasts between the location pairs were shown to be statistically significant Hotelling's T-squared test. The five populations were arranged in a dendogram containing two groups, since a standard of spatial variation between the populations has still not been detected by Mantel Test, although it presents coherence in regards to the agroecological units from which they are allocated. The results are discussed in terms of genetic variability among populations, and the relationships between this diversity, the environmental factors of the ecogeographical units where the plants of the sampled populations were collected, and the implications of the results in terms of selection and use for the genetic improvement of passiflora.

Key words: ‘Do-sono’ passion fruit, native fruits, genetic variability, selection, genetic improvement.