OPTIMAL USE OF RANDOM AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA IN ESTIMATING THE GENETIC-RELATIONSHIP OF 4 MAJOR MELOIDOGYNE SPP

The technique of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was used to estimate the genetic relationship among four species of nematodes, Meloidogyne incognita, M. arenaria, M. javanica, and M. hapla. The clustering derived from RAPDs was fully consistent with that obtained from cytogenetic, enzymatic and restriction fragment length polymorphisms of genomic and mtDNA studies. The similarity between the species and its jackknife variance was estimated according to the number of bands scored. While similarity did not differ significantly with the number of bands scored, the variance of similarity for the less distant species diminished as the number of bands increased, and became constant beyond 200 bands. The similarities calculated from four independent replicates did not differ significantly from the estimation made from the reproducible bands in the four replicates.