VEGETABLE BIOTECHNOLOGY, TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: SUBSIDIES FOR THE CONSERVATION OF Hancornia speciosa Gomes
Mangabeira; In vitro conservation; Ethnobotany; Landscape management.
The mangabeira (Hancornia speciosa Gomes) is a native fruit species from Brazil wich has a broad geographic distribution that goes from the Cerrado to the coastal plains of the Northeast, being well known for socio-economic, environmental and cultural importance. In the last decade the intensification of human actions has contributed to the significant reduction in their native fields, thus, to their genetic diversity. This justifies the imminent need for alternatives that enable its recovery in natural environment and the conservation of their genotypes. In this context, the general objective of the thesis was to propose the development of strategies that support the ex situ and in situ conservation of mangabeira using as tools plant biotechnology and ethnobotanical studies. Thus, this study includes approaches that involve aspects of plant biotechnology in the ex situ conservation of mango trees; morphological characterization of the species H. speciosa in different landscape units, as well as an ethnobotanical approach which sought to characterize the knowledge, use and main local management practices involving the species. Therefore, one of the stages of this research generated chapter 1, entitled: “Slow growth in vitro culture for the conservation of Hancornia speciosa Gomes”. In it, mangrove nodal explants were inoculated in MS culture media containing varying concentrations of sorbitol and sucrose osmotic agents, in order to observe which treatment would induce slow growth of the culture without affecting plant viability. After 120 days, it was verified from the statistical analysis with 5% of significance that the addition of osmotic agents in the concentration of 5 g L-1 sorbitol + 15 g L-1 sucrose reduces the growth rate in vitro maintaining the viability of the plant. Increasing sorbitol concentrations in combination with sucrose reduces in vitro growth; however, they were not viable for the maintaining of plants during 120 days of cultivation.