Geometric morphometric applied to the study of Theobroma Cacao leaf

Abstract

The objective of the work was to analyze the patterns of variation of the shape of the cocoa leaf by means of geometric morphometry to identify traditional genotypes. 490 leaves of seven genotypes were photographed and 14 key points were placed. Procrustean analyzes were performed, an adjustment with the principal component analysis and a canonical analysis. From these key points, the consensus form of the evaluated cocoa leaves was obtained, where the information of the form was summarized. These results allowed showing morphological variability in terms of the shape of traditional cocoa, distinctive in comparison with the commercial genotypes analyzed, which allowed a preliminary differentiation between them.