Discrimination of Myrtle Ecotypes from Di erent Geographic Areas According to Their Morphological Characteristics and Anthocyanins Composition

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2019-09Department
Ingeniería Química y Tecnología de Alimentos; Química AnalíticaSource
Plants 2019, 8(9), 328Abstract
Myrtus communis L. is an evergreen shrub that produces berries with a high content in
antioxidant compounds. Since these compounds have demonstrated a positive e ect on human
health, the interest on berries and their usages has increased. However, environmental conditions may
a ect the productivity of these species and consequently the quality of wild myrtle. Ecotypes from
diverse geographical origins may result in significant variations in terms of bioactive compounds
content as well as in chemical traits. For this reason, in this work ecotypes from two di erent
localizations have been studied to determine if their di erences in morphological and anthocyanins
traits can be attributed to their origin and the environmental characteristics of these locations. For
this, chemometric analyses such as Hierarchical Cluster Analysis and Principal Component Analysis,
were employed. The results showed di erences between the ecotypes depending on their location.
In particular, myrtle berries from maritime zones present greater fruit size and amount of bioactive
compounds, which means an improvement in the quality of the final product based on this raw
material. It can be concluded that both morphological and anthocyanins traits are related to the
location of the ecotype and allow selecting the best ecotype for the required applications.