Somatic incompatibility and AFLP analysis of four species of Ganoderma isolated from oil palm

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis and somatic incompatibility were used to assess inter- and intra-specific variations among 12 Ganoderma isolates from four different species isolated from oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). Scorable bands (646) were obtained with 10 AFLP primer combination markers. Cluster analysis by the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averaging (UPGMA) using genetic distances showed that the isolates were of two main groups. The somatic incompatibility test gave results congruent to AFLP analysis where somatic incompatibility also occurred within the different isolates of the same species which indicated two different genotypes in one species. In general, pathogenic isolates were found to group together in the same cluster. Isolates from the same species were also more closely related to each other. The results indicate that molecular identification provides support to the morphological identification of the isolates studied