María Luisa Rubio Teso

King Juan Carlos University | URJC · Biology and Geology

Background and aims: Within-population genetic and phenotypic variation play a key role in the development of adaptive responses to environmental change. Between-population variation is also an essential element to assess the evolutionary potential of species in response to changes in environmental conditions. In this context, common garden experi...

Citation: Torres, E.; García-Fernández, A.; Iñigo, D.; Lara-Romero, C.; Morente-López, J.; Prieto-Benítez, S.; Rubio Teso, M.L.; Iriondo, J.M. Facilitated adaptation as a conservation tool in the present climate change context: A methodological guide. Plants 2023, 12, 1258. https://doi. Abstract: Climate change poses a novel threat to biodiversity...

Current climate change may impede species to evolutionary adapt quickly enough to environmental changes, threatening their survival. In keystone populations, it may be necessary to consider the introduction of adaptive alleles through assisted gene flow. Considering that flowering time is a crucial trait in plant response to global warming, the obj...

In the present framework of global warming, it is unclear whether evolutionary adaptation can happen quick enough to preserve the persistence of many species. Specifically, we lack knowledge about the adaptive potential of the different populations in relation to the various constraints that may hamper particular adaptations. There is evidence indi...

Estrategia Nacional de Conservación y Utilización de Parientes Silvestres de los Cultivos (PSC) y Plantas Silvestres de Uso Alimentario (PSUA)

Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) are a valuable source of genetic diversity that can be transferred to commercial crops, so their conservation will become a priority in the face of climate change. Bizarrely, in situ conserved CWR populations and the traits one might wish to preserve in them are themselves vulnerable to climate change. In this study, we us...

Transgenerational plasticity is a form of non-genetic inheritance that can reduce or enhance offspring fitness depending on parental stress. Yet, the adaptive value of such parental environmental effects and whether their expression varies among populations remain largely unknown. We used self-fertilized lines from climatically distinct populations...

Crop wild relatives are species related to cultivated plants, whose populations have evolved in natural conditions and confer them valuable adaptive genetic diversity, that can be used in introgression breeding programs. Targeting four wild lentil taxa in Europe, we applied the predictive characterization approach through the filtering method to id...

During the last century, the progressive substitution of landraces with modern, high yielding varieties, led to a dramatic reduction of in situ conserved crop diversity in Europe. Nowadays there is limited and scattered information on where landraces are cultivated. To fill this gap and lay the groundwork for a regional landrace in situ conservatio...

Many species cannot either migrate or adapt at the rate of temperature increases due to climate warming. Therefore, they need active conservation strategies to avoid extinction. Facilitated adaptation actions, such assisted gene flow, aim at the increase of the evolutionary resilience of species affected by global change. In elevational gradients,...

In the context of climate change, populations are increasingly being subjected to the extreme selective pressures that define environmental marginality. The determination of the evolutionary value and adaptive potential of marginal populations is still a challenge of great relevance and has direct implications on biodiversity conservation. To face...

In this report, Farmer’s Pride project partners assess the potential of the Natura 2000 network to secure crop wild relative (CWR) diversity. They present results of analyses showing the priority CWR populations that occur within the limits of the network and analyse the coverage and efficiency of the Natura 2000 network as a tool for CWR in situ c...

This report describes the work of Farmer’s Pride project partners to increase knowledge about the occurrence of natural populations of crop wild relatives (CWR), as well as the existence of active in situ conservation actions.

The evolutionary potential of populations inhabiting marginal areas has been extensively debated and directly affects their conservation value. Gene flow is one of the main factors influencing selection, adaptive potential and thus, local adaptation processes in marginal areas. The effects of differential gene flow provenance are still not well und...

Populations of widely distributed species often exhibit geographic variation in functional traits in response to environmental heterogeneity. Such trait variation may be the result of different adaptive mechanisms, including genetically based differentiation, phenotypic plasticity or a combination of both. Disentangling the genetic and environmenta...

Crop wild relatives (CWR) can be used to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on crops, but their genetic diversity conservation has not been properly addressed. We propose a new target unit for conservation (Asso-EcoU) based on the occurrence of phytosociological associations in different environments. This approach involves using ecoge...

Las aproximaciones genéticas son esenciales en los estudios de biología de conservación relacionados con las plantas. La evaluación de factores como la diversidad genética y su impacto en la conservación, los niveles de endogamia o el flujo genético han permitido conocer mejor el estado de las poblaciones amenazadas y adecuar las acciones de manejo...

This is the first comprehensive investigation of the patterns of genetic diversity of Patellifolia species. The main objective of our research work is to determine Most Appropriate crop Wild relative Populations (MAWP) suited to conserve in situ wild relatives of the sugar beet. Individual plant samples of P. patellaris were collected at 26 and of...

Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) are receiving significant attention over the last decades. Numerous conservation plans and guidelines to better manage these resources have been developed lately at both national and international levels. In this sense, Spain is following a similar path to that followed by other countries and has included CWR in the Nation...

Crop wild relatives (CWR) have recently received significant attention due to their value as plant genetic resources and their contribution to world food security. We present a prioritized checklist of CWR in Spain in which the criteria of crossability with crops of economic importance, endemicity and threat status have been taken into account. Fir...

The genetic diversity of Patellifolia patellaris has been investigated to generate information required for the organisation of a systematic genetic resources conservation action combining the best elements of the ex situ and in situ conservation concept. To this end, ten occurrences of the species were sampled on the Iberian Peninsula in Portugal...

Habitat fragmentation, i.e., fragment size and isolation, can differentially alter patterns of neutral and quantitative genetic variation, fitness and phenotypic plasticity of plant populations, but their effects have rarely been tested simultaneously. We assessed the combined effects of size and connectivity on these aspects of genetic and phenoty...

In the context of flourishing crop wild relative (CWR) conservation studies and initiatives at the national level, the purpose of this chapter is to review the current status of development and implementation of national CWR conservation strategies worldwide, and to perform a comparative study of the different approaches, challenges and solutions p...

Characterization and evaluation (C&E) of CWR and landraces (LR) essential for enhancing their conservation and use—has nearly always involved an element of prediction. In practice, breeders rarely choose accessions for field characterization and evaluation randomly where possible they select accessions they believe are likely to contain the desired...

Predictive characterization methods use ecogeographical and climatic data derived from the specific location of a collecting or observation site, to predict characteristics of accessions and populations that can inform conservation and use options. The predictive characterization methods presented in these technical guidelines for crop wild relativ...

This paper aims to make progress in the prioritization of Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) to be achieved by 2020, with the objective of establishing national conservation action plans, filling ex situ conservation gaps and enhancing CWR utilization, as proposed by Maxted and Kell (2012). In order to know the status of the ex situ conservation of CWR in S...

Participants agreed on the general approach to the development of national CWR and LR conservation strategies and the issue of funding the planning stages of the strategies was debated. PGR Secure, via the project's helpdesk (www.pgrsecure .org), agreed to make available a list of policy drivers that will help persuade governments to provide the mo...

The aim of this paper is to design a collection strategy in Spain, identifying sampling areas to ensure a greater genetic diversity of Mentha L., both intraspecific and interspecific, and to minimize collecting efforts.