@article{fdi:010085083,
  title = {{T}owards the identification of wild {A}frican date palms in {K}erkennah {I}slands from {T}unisia by morphometric and genetic analyses},
  author = {{S}affar, {W}. and {B}ourguiba, {H}. and {C}herif, {E}mira and {C}habrillange, {N}athalie and {H}achef, {A}. and {I}vorra, {S}. and {M}oussini, {S}. and {N}aqvi, {S}. {A}. and {L}ittardi, {C}. and {Z}ango, {O}. and {L}emansour, {A}. and {A}bdoulkader, {S}. and {D}aher, {A}. and {T}erral, {J}. {F}. and {A}berlenc, {F}r{\'e}d{\'e}rique and {Z}ehdi-{A}zouzi, {S}.},
  editor = {},
  language = {{ENG}},
  abstract = {{W}ild relatives constitute an invaluable resource for crop breeding and are key components to understand their domestication history. {D}ate palm is one of the oldest fruit crops, cultivated for millennia for its nutritional value and major economic and symbolic role. {T}wo strongly differentiated gene pools have been recognized as the {W}estern gene pool in {N}orth {A}frica and the {E}astern one in the {M}iddle {E}ast. {A}lthough a wild population has been proposed in {O}man for the {E}astern genetic pool, no wild date palm from the {W}estern one has been yet described. {I}n {T}unisia, the date palms of {K}erkennah archipelago consisted of spontaneous uncultivated individuals that are promising candidates for putative wild date palms. {M}orphometric tools were applied to 1140 date palm seeds of 69 {K}erkennah accessions and compared to previously defined reference morphotypes. {T}he genetic diversity of {K}erkennah accessions was also compared to date palm populations and three {P}hoenix species using 18 nuclear microsatellite and one chloroplastic minisatellite markers. {M}orphometric analyses of {K}erkennah accessions revealed genotypes with round-shaped seeds, characteristic of wild {P}hoenix species. {G}enetic analyses showed that {K}erkennah's date palm belonged to the {W}estern gene pool and exhibited a larger diversity and allelic richness than the western cultivated ones, proving that they are more probably wild than ferals. {A}ltogether, our results strongly suggest that the spontaneous date palms growing in the harsh environment of the {K}erkennah archipelago are wild populations. {T}his unique heritage long-time preserved from anthropogenic pressure, is likely to contain some of the ancestral genetic diversity that would be of great value for breeding and provides new information for the discovery of the origins of the date palm.},
  keywords = {{D}ate palm ; {P}hoenix dactylifera ; {W}ild genotypes ; {C}onservation ; {G}enetic ; structure ; {K}erkennah {I}slands ; {TUNISIE} ; {KERKENNAH} {ILES}},
  booktitle = {},
  journal = {{S}cientia {H}orticulturae},
  volume = {297},
  numero = {},
  pages = {110973 [11 p.]},
  ISSN = {0304-4238},
  year = {2022},
  DOI = {10.1016/j.scienta.2022.110973},
  URL = {https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010085083},
}