Maytenus ilicifolia Mart. ex Reis., popularly known as "espinheira-santa", is an autochthonous species belonging to the Celastraceae family. This species is used to treat ulcers and gastritis. Due to its medicinal importance, the exploitation of natural populations has increased, making the conservation of this species essential to prevent genetic erosion. The aim of this work was to analyze the genetic diversity of 20 M. ilicifolia accessions collected in different localities of Rio Grande do Sul State. Using AFLP-type molecular markers, eight primer combinations were tested, producing 455 electrophoretic profiles, with 100% polymorphism. The primer combinations E-ACC/M-CAA, E-ACG/M-CTA and E-ACG/M-CTC presented the largest number of electrophoretic profiles, 71 each, totaling 46.80% of the total polymorphism. The values of genetic similarity estimated by Simple Matching Coefficient were used to produce the dendrogram of similarity by the UPGMA method. A high cophenetic correlation coefficient (r = 0.94) was obtained, demonstrating high representativeness of the data of genetic similarity in the dendrogram. Using AMOVA, 89.33% of the total diversity were observed among individuals from the same population. The molecular characterization of Maytenus ilicifolia accessions by AFLP allowed the identification of genetic diversity. The genetic similarity analysis indicated that the germplasm bank could be composed of the accessions presenting the lowest similarity and the largest numbers of alleles, providing a comprehensive coverage of Maytenus ilicifolia genome. The accessions that were grouped into one same cluster and with a reduced number of alleles could be disposed of this bank. The genetic diversity identified by this marker within populations was much greater than that between populations.
molecular markers; genetic similarity; AFLP; AMOVA
