Format: ORAL

Nerea Navarro, M. Luisa Rubio Teso, Jos M. Iriondo

Department of Biology, Rey Juan Carlos University, Móstoles, Spain

Wild grape is important for Spain because it is a) the third largest wine producer in the world, b) one of the most climate-affected European countries, and c) a rich source of wild grape diversity. As part of the implementation of the National Strategy for the Conservation and Utilization of Crop Wild Relatives and Wild Food Plants of Spain, we aimed at inventorying the occurrences of wild grape populations in Spain and developing an optimized design of a network for the establishment of wild grape genetic reserves. 796 wild grape populations were identified from various sources. An ecogeographic land characterization (ELC) map was created for Spain to estimate genetic differentiation between wild grape populations. 309 populations that occur in protected areas were found in 9 of the 10 ecogeographical categories in which the species occurs in Spain. Using a complementarity analysis, seven protected areas including nine populations were finally selected for the establishment of the genetic reserves. An eighth site in a non-protected area was also selected to cover the ecogeographic category that was not represented in the protected area populations. The proposed network is distributed across a latitudinal gradient including sites located in Navarra, Aragn, Madrid and Andaluca. The establishment of these genetic reserves would provide protection and enable access to the genetic resources for the breeding of new cultivars adapted to the forthcoming environmental conditions.