The aim of this work was to study the incidence of the post-harvest processing on the morphological and molecular diversity of the potentially ochratoxigenic Aspergillus species of the Nigri section isolated from cocoa beans. For three successive cocoa growing seasons in Cameroon, black Aspergillus species isolated during different post-harvest processes were studied by phenotypic and molecular techniques. Their identification by PCR techniques with specific primers allowed to separate A. carbonarius from A. niger aggregate. A study of the genomic profiles obtained by RAPD-PCR for A. niger aggregate and A. carbonarius showed an important biodiversity that depended on neither the year of the cocoa growing season nor the post-harvest treatment or the bean processing stage.
