Influence of spatial, edaphic and genetic factors on phenols and essential oils of Myrciaria cauliflora fruits

Abstract

Essential oil chemical composition and phenolics (total phenols, tannins and anthocyanins), reducing sugar and fruit acidity contents of Myrciaria cauliflora were obtained from cultivated populations in six sampling sites. Canonical redundancy (RDA) and discriminant analyses revealed four clusters of samples based on contents of α-copaene, tannins, reducing sugar and fruit acidity as predictor variables. The total variation partition performed by partial RDAs showed a strong influence of edaphic factors on phenolics, reducing sugar and fruit acidity data set. However, the polymorphism of essential oils may be genetically determined. Spatial influence on chemovariations was significant for all constituents, but less pronounced for essential oil data. © 2012 Sociedade Brasileira de Química.