In order to evaluate the potential of RAPD markers to characterize the genetic diversity of gerbera accessions in comparison to the main horticultural characteristics employed, comparative analyses of genetic diversity were performed using the information from the afore mentioned markers and the botanical descriptions of 28 accessions with available information (Table 1).
Analyses were carried out by transformation of the botanical data into a disjunctive table (presence or absence of the
class for each characteristic) to obtain the genetic similarity indices for both data sets (=Jaccard).
Despite the botanical data are only from four characteristics, the average value of genetic similarity found for RAPD markers was of 0.58 against 0.23 for the botanical descriptions, indicating a greater ability of RAPD markers to reveal
the genetic divergence among the accessions investigated in this work than the botanical description.
Moreover, the botanical descriptors were not able to discriminate between the accessions Avana and Amazone, whereas RAPD markers allowed the distinction among all 42 accessions investigated in the comparison between the datasets.
In contrast, null similarity values were absent from the analysis of RAPD markers whereas the botanical descriptions have provided several comparisons of total divergence, such as between the accessions Brasil and Igor, Brasil and
Kozak, Brasil and Lady, Brasil and Lamborguini, Igor and CFOrange, and others (data not shown).