The objective of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of similarity coefficients of bean genotypes based on RAPD markers. The efficiency of Jaccard, Sorensen-Dice, Russel and Rao, Ochiai, Simple Maching, Rogers and Tanimoto, Hamann, Kulczynski 2, Yule and Phi coefficients in the clustering and ordination of 35 common bean genotypes was evaluated through 104 RAPD markers. The coefficients were compared by the evaluation of dendrograms, projection efficiency in bidimensional space and groups formed using Tocher's optimization method. The different similarity coefficients altered the projection efficiency in a two-dimensional space and formed different number of groups by Tocher's optimization procedure. Among these coefficients, Russel and Rao and Yule's are the most discordants, and the Sorensen-Dice, Ochiai and Kulczynski 2 present the higher efficiency. Russel and Rao coefficient is not able for separating bean cultivars according to domestication centers.
Phaseolus vulgaris; genetic divergence; cluster analysis
