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Ecogeographical land characterization maps as a tool for assessing plant adaptation and their implications in agrobiodiversity studies

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Abstract

Information on plant adaptation can be very useful in agrobiodiversity studies. Ecogeographical land characterization (ELC) maps constitute a new tool in this direction with great potential. To assess the usefulness of this approach, an ELC map of Spain was created through multivariate methods. Its performance to characterize plant habitat preferences was compared with existing ecological regions and land cover maps. Collecting sites and seed weight from eight plant species were used to test the ELC map. Categories from each map were assigned to accessions using collecting sites. Chi-square tests were applied to test if category frequency distributions for each species followed a distribution proportional to the relative frequency of categories in each map. The tests found significant differences in the eight species studied. Thus, Bonferroni confidence intervals (BCI) classified categories from maps in preferred, neutral or avoided habitats. Seed weight was used as a proxy for plant adaptation. Comparison between observed and expected ranking of BCI and quartile classes in terms of seed weight means, and GLM and post-hoc tests carried out to test the effect of these classes upon seed weight showed consistently better results for the ELC map. Species results and applications of ecogeographic maps in plant genetic resources conservation are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the personnel at CRF-INIA, in particular to Lucía de la Rosa and Edurne Aguiriano. We are also grateful to Miguel Ibañez for his statistical advice and Lori J. De Hond for linguistic assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología Vegetal, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Mauricio Parra-Quijano & Elena Torres

  2. Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad Nacional de Colombia sede Bogotá, A.A. 14490, Bogotá, Colombia

    Mauricio Parra-Quijano

  3. Área de Biodiversidad y Conservación, Depto. Biología y Geología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, c/Tulipán s/n, 28933, Móstoles (Madrid), Spain

    José M. Iriondo

Authors
  1. Mauricio Parra-Quijano
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  2. José M. Iriondo
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  3. Elena Torres
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Correspondence to Elena Torres.

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Parra-Quijano, M., Iriondo, J.M. & Torres, E. Ecogeographical land characterization maps as a tool for assessing plant adaptation and their implications in agrobiodiversity studies. Genet Resour Crop Evol 59, 205–217 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-011-9676-7

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