The Origins and Dispersal Throughout The Pacific Islands of Fehi Bananas (Musa Series Australimusa)

Authors

  • Lex A.J. Thomson Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2984-0711
  • Jean-François Butaud Independent Botanist, Tahiti
  • Jeff Daniells Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
  • Paul A. Geraghty University of The South Pacific
  • Adriana Hiariej Universitas Pattimura
  • Valérie Kagy Institut Agronomique Néo-Calédonien
  • Jean Kennedy Australian National University
  • Angela K. Kepler Naturalist, Hawai‘i
  • David J. Mabberley Wadham College, University of Oxford; Macquarie University; Australian Institute for Botanical Science
  • Gabriel L. Sachter-Smith Banana Researcher and Grower, Hawai‘i
  • Julie Sardos Alliance Bioversity-Ciat
  • William H. Wilson University of Hawai‘i at Hilo
  • Maurice Wong Direction de l’Agriculture, French Polynesia

Keywords:

Australimusa biogeography, Callimusa, crop wild relatives, Fehi bananas, Micronesia, Polynesia, Makira Island (Solomon Islands), Tahiti, historical linguistics of Fehi, Fehi origins and dispersals

Abstract

Fehi bananas are a Pacific Islands and eastern Indonesian assemblage of parthenocarpic diploid and triploid cultivars in Musa series Australimusa. Fehi cultivars were derived principally from M. maclayi, M. lolodensis and M. bukensiss.l. and related entities. Eleven Fehi cultivar groups comprising morphologically similar cultivars are described, along with naturalised forms from eastern Polynesia. Fehi cultivars have been referred to particular species such as M. troglodytarum and M.fehi, but further genetic research is needed to ascertain how human-selected cultivars are interrelated and derived from any particular species.

Author Biographies

Lex A.J. Thomson, Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research

Lex Thomson is a forest scientist and Associate Adjunct Professor in agroforestry and Pacific Islands agribusiness at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has worked extensively on forestry, agroforestry and agricultural production systems in 40 tropical developing countries, including assessing the impacts of climate change on Pacific Islands forests. He has led Bioversity International’s global forest biodiversity research programme, CSIRO’s South Pacific Regional Initiative on Forest Genetic Resources, SPC-EU’s Facilitating Agricultural Commodity Trade project and the Pacific Agribusiness Research for Development Initiative. He is an authority on Australian and Pacific Islands tree species and has published on Acacia, Casuarina, Eucalyptus, Hibiscus, Santalum, Sesbania and other plant genera and species.

Jean-François Butaud, Independent Botanist, Tahiti

Jean-François Butaud is a French forest engineer and earned his PhD in molecular chemistry from the University of French Polynesia with a dissertation on the Polynesian sandalwood (botany, ecology, chemistry, phylogeny). Based in Tahiti since 2001, he worked for four years for the local forestry department and is now a private consultant engaged in the knowledge and conservation of French Polynesia’s natural heritage. He leads ethnobotanical inventories, botanical prospecting, taxonomical descriptions of new species and the restoration of islands or valleys in collaboration with the Environment Department and local NGOs. His geographical areas of interest encompass French Polynesia, Rapa Nui and New Caledonia.

Jeff Daniells, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries

Jeff Daniells is a Senior Principal Horticulturist with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, situated at South Johnstone in the centre of Australia’s banana industry. Jeff has been researching various aspects of bananas for 40 years and currently is responsible for the introduction and evaluation of pest- and disease-resistant banana varieties with an emphasis on TR4 Fusarium wilt resistance. Jeff is Chair of the Genetic Diversity Thematic Group of MusaNet. He has written recent book chapters for the Handbook of Diseases of Banana, Abacá and Enset (CABI, 2018) and Achieving Sustainable Cultivation of Bananas (Vol. 2) (Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing, 2020). In 2021 Jeff received the Australian Banana Industry Award of Honour “in recognition of outstanding dedication and service to the Australian banana industry”.

Paul A. Geraghty, University of The South Pacific

Paul Geraghty earned his PhD from the University of Hawaiʻi with a dissertation on the history of the Fijian languages. He was Director of the Institute of Fijian Language and Culture in Suva from 1986 to 2001 and is currently Adjunct Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of the South Pacific. He is author and editor of several books, including The History of the Fijian Languages (University of Hawaii Press, 1983), the Lonely Planet Fijian Phrasebook (Lonely Planet, 1994), Borrowing: A Pacific Perspective (Australian National University Press, 2004) and The Macquarie Dictionary of English for the Fiji Islands (Macquarie Library, 2006), and articles on Pacific languages, culture and history.

Adriana Hiariej, Universitas Pattimura

Adriana Hiariej’s research interests since 2012 have included studying local germplasm biodiversity, including the Tongka Langit banana (Musa troglodytarum L.) from the Maluku Islands, Indonesia. This includes exploration, morphological and genetic characterisation at the DNA level and product development. Since 2018 she has been a member of the Wallacea Expedition Biogeography and Biodiversity of Banana team in the Maluku islands, a collaboration between the Bandung Institute of Technology and Pattimura University Ambon.

Valérie Kagy, Institut Agronomique Néo-Calédonien

Valérie Kagy has expertise in the study of traditional crops and particularly Pacific bananas and their role in socio-cultural life in Melanesian communities. She led a study on the genetic diversity of these bananas and has been involved in a variety of other research projects on the genetics of traditional crops such as breadfruit and yams. She has a particular interest in the indigenous biodiversity of New Caledonia, focusing on the genetics and drought tolerance of its endemic citrus, and in this regard her work helps support food security. Since 2012, she has developed the research programme on natural substances at the Institut Agronomique néo-Calédonien (IAC), upholding the value of local biodiversity for resilient and innovative agricultural systems to protect New Caledonia’s rich native Pacific ecosystem in the face of global change.

Jean Kennedy, Australian National University

Jean Kennedy is an anthropology graduate of the University of Otago (MA Hons) and the University of Hawai‘i (PhD). She specialised in Pacific and Southeast Asian archaeology before joining ANU and being drawn into New Guinea research. Her fieldwork there centred on Manus Province. She taught history and philosophy of science as well as archaeology at the University of Papua New Guinea. Since retiring to Canberra, she has returned to longstanding interests in biogeography, botany and Pacific tree crops as well as prehistory and has maintained a fondness for talking with students.

Angela K. Kepler, Naturalist, Hawai‘i

Angela Kay Kepler is an energetic “old-fashioned naturalist”, having pursued a multifaceted career in ornithology, ecology, botany/ethnobotany, conservation, environmental consulting, marine biology and high-end ecotourism lecturing. She discovered five new species, notably the elfin woods warbler (Setophaga angelae, Puerto Rican cloud forest) and a subfossil rail (Porzana keplerorum, Hawaiian lava tubes). Angela has written 18 books and received several literary and photography awards, including one for The World of Bananas in Hawai‘i: Then and Now (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2011), and is currently writing a major work on Pacific fishing canoes. She holds degrees from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of Hawai‘i and Cornell University, and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford.

David J. Mabberley, Wadham College, University of Oxford; Macquarie University; Australian Institute for Botanical Science

David J. Mabberley is a British-born Australian botanist, educator and author. He was consecutively Director of the University of Washington Botanic Gardens (Seattle, USA), Keeper of the Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (United Kingdom) and Executive Director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney (Australia). He is now an Emeritus Fellow, Wadham College, University of Oxford (United Kingdom); Emeritus Professor, Leiden University (The Netherlands); and Adjunct Professor, Macquarie University, Sydney. Among his varied academic interests are the taxonomy of tropical trees, notably mahoganies and citrus, and the history of science and botanical art. Internationally he is perhaps best known as author of the award-winning Mabberley’s Plant-Book: A Portable Dictionary of Plants, Their Classification and Uses, now in its fourth edition (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Gabriel L. Sachter-Smith, Banana Researcher and Grower, Hawai‘i

Gabriel Sachter-Smith is a banana farmer and researcher based in Hawai‘i, USA. From the age of 13, he has been studying all aspects of bananas, and in particular diversity and breeding. He attended the University of Hawai‘i where he received BS and MS degrees in agricultural production as well as plant breeding and genetics, with particular focus on how banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) affects various genotypes of banana. He runs a commercial organic banana farm on ‘Oahu where he maintains over 150 varieties, as well as conducting breeding work to create new types of bananas for a variety of uses. When he is not farming, Gabe is known as a banana diversity expert of international recognition specialising in identification and taxonomy and has contributed to a number of banana-collecting and -documenting expeditions in Asia and the Pacific, including the documentation and taxonomy of wild species.

Julie Sardos, Alliance Bioversity-Ciat

Julie Sardos is a French-born crop genetic resources scientist and plant geneticist working for the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. Starting with a PhD on root and tuber crops of Vanuatu, she has spent 15 years working on Pacific Islands food crops, in the past ten years focusing on banana (Musa spp.) genetic resources, diversity and evolution. Since 2016 and within the framework of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, she has organised and implemented collecting missions to assess and safeguard the endangered diversity of traditional banana cultivars and wild relatives. She has authored or co-authored more than 25 research papers published in peer-reviewed journals as well as a number of book chapters. Since 2017 she has been co-chair of the Diversity Thematic Group of MusaNet, the global network for Musa-related research.

William H. Wilson, University of Hawai‘i at Hilo

William H. Wilson is a Professor of linguistics, language revitalisation and Hawaiian at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo’s Hawaiian language college, Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani. His PhD is from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and focused on Polynesian historical linguistics. His early work on Polynesian possessives suggested that East Polynesia was settled from the Northern Outliers, a relationship that he has since documented with extensive data. He is best known in Hawaiʻi and the United States for his work in Hawaiian language revitalisation and outreach support for Native American languages.

Maurice Wong, Direction de l’Agriculture, French Polynesia

Maurice Wong is an agronomist with expertise in agricultural research on the conservation and genetic diversity of staple food crops, roots and tubers, bananas and fehi. A member of the PAPGREN (Pacific Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Network) in the Pacific, he is the curator of the ex-situ Pacific banana collection, hosted by Tahiti. As the Director of AGROPOL, he leads several teams working on food technology and processing, focusing on coconut, breadfruit and banana; pesticide use and a survey on residues on fruits and vegetables; rearing of insects for biological control of fruit flies, aphids and coconut pests; plant pathology, mainly banana bunchy top virus; and experiments for new vegetable varieties more resilient to pests and diseases.

A choir from Hihifo village, Niuatoputapu

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Published

2022-10-31

Issue

Vol. 131 No. 3 (2022): September 2022

Section

Articles

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