Advances in Classification of Main Cultivated Bananas (Musa spp.) and the Origins and Domestication

Abstract

Banana, a monocotyledonous plant in the genus Musa of the family Musaceae, is one of the most important tropical fruit crops. Globally, banana is also the fourth most important staple food, followed by rice, wheat, and maize. Cultivated bananas, comprising dessert and cooking types, are mostly triploids with complicated genetic background. Researches on origins and domestication of cultivated bananas are essential for accelerating the process of banana breeding. In recent years, great progress has been made in molecular phylogenetics of banana germplasm resources, providing valuable genetic information to facilitate further uses in the design of breeding strategies. This review updated the sectional taxonomy of the wild species in the genus Musa closely related to cultivated bananas, and summarized the common cultivated groups in the world and their characteristics, encompassing 18 cultivated types in 7 genomic groups. Moreover, we concluded the recent updates on the origins and domestication of the most important cultivated groups including AAA, AAB, ABB and AB, the evolutionary biology of wild M. acuminata subspecies and the existence of undefined ancestral genepools which both contributed to the diversity of the cultivated bananas. Besides, we proposed the prospect for future researches on the cultivated bananas. This review, to the best knowledge of the authors, is systematically summarize the recent advances in the origins and domestication of the cultivated bananas, with a view to seeking elite germplasm and novel gene resources for providing references for the researches on banana breeding.

Keywords

• banana
• cultivated groups
• origin
• domestication
• germplasm resources