Genotyping of Secale cereale L. trough ddRADseq to disentangle genetic differences among mountain rye landraces of the Western Alps

115° Congresso della Società Botanica Italiana

Online

9 - 11 settembre 2020

Volume degli abstract

Sponsor

Comitato Scientifico

Consolata Siniscalco (Torino) (President) Maria Maddalena Altamura (Roma) Stefania Biondi (Bologna)

Alessandro Chiarucci (Bologna) Salvatore Cozzolino (Napoli) Lorenzo Peruzzi (Pisa) Ferruccio Poli (Bologna)

Carlo Blasi (Università La Sapienza, Roma) Luca Bragazza (Università di Ferrara) Giuseppe Brundu (Università di Sassari) Stefano Chelli (Università di Camerino) Vincenzo De Feo (Università di Salerno) Giuseppe Fenu (Università di Cagliari) Goffredo Filibeck (Università della Tuscia) Marta Galloni (Università di Bologna) Lorenzo Gianguzzi (Università di Palermo) Stefano Martellos (Università di Trieste)

Anna Maria Mercuri (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia)

Lorella Navazio (Università di Padova) Alessio Papini (Università di Firenze)

Anna Maria Persiani (Università La Sapienza, Roma) Rossella Pistocchi (Università di Bologna)

Marta Puglisi (Università di Catania)

Francesco Maria Raimondo (Università di Palermo) Luigi Sanità di Toppi (Università di Pisa)

Fabio Taffetani (Università delle Marche)

Comitato Tecnico e Organizzativo

Chiara Barletta

Gianniantonio Domina Lorenzo Lazzaro

Marcello Salvatore Lenucci Stefano Martellos

Giovanni Salucci Lisa Vannini

Abstract

115° Congresso S.B.I. - Online, 9 – 11 settembre 2020

118

6 = Genotyping of Secale cereale L. trough ddRADseq to disentangle genetic differences

among mountain rye landraces of the Western Alps

Martino Adamo1_{, Massimo Blandino}2_{, Michele Lonati}2_{, Giampiero Lombardi}2_{, Laura Zavattaro}3_{, Simone}

Ravetto Enri2_{, Luca Capo}2_{, Anna Fusconi}1_{, Marco Mucciarelli}1

1_{Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi, Università degli Studi di Torino, Viale Mattioli 25, 10125}

Torino; 2_{Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali e Alimentari, Università degli Studi di Torino,} 3_{Dipartimento di}

Scienze Veterinarie, Università degli Studi di Torino, Largo Paolo Braccini 2, 10095 Grugliasco (TO)

Winter rye (Secale cereale L.) has been one of the major crop and source of staple food for humans in many parts of Europe. Since the Middle Ages, winter rye expanded dramatically as a crop in Scandinavia, taking advantage of its competitive strength on poor soils and in areas with unfavourable climate. For the same reasons, until the 1950s, it was the dominant cereal in many landscapes of Italy, including the mountain valleys of Piedmont and Aosta on the Western Alps. As a consequence of the introduction of high yield commercial seeds in the 1930s and later, after World War II with the abandonment of marginal rural areas, most of the winter rye landraces were lost.

Because of its rusticity, rye is a potential reservoir of adverse climate resistance traits that can be used to improve, not only modern varieties of rye, but also other cereals. The recovery of local landraces and the study of their genetic heritage is therefore twofold important: firstly, for the conservation of the local agronomic biodiversity and its traditions, but also for the discovery of novel plant traits to be exploited for yield improvement of modern varieties under a changing climate.

A ddRADseq approach was implemented in this study to investigate the genetic variability of a selected array of winter rye landraces sampled on farm in different mountain valleys of Piedmont and Aosta Valley. We compared landrace gene pools with a source of local seed accessions stored at the “Leibniz-Institut für Pflanzengenetik und Kulturpflanzenforschung” (IPK, Germany) and with a couple of modern varieties. AMOVA analysis revealed coherence with regard to rye landraces (genetic variability between samples inside landraces <1%) and a moderate variability between populations (30%); the remnant genetic variability was expressed between all samples (69%). According to genetic distances, our results assigned winter rye of the Western Alps to two main genetic clusters and highlighted the probable intrusion of modern varieties genes in many of the local ones. Nonetheless, at least four of them were retrieved as genetically isolated from the remaining. Agronomic features of these populations are under study.

In this historical period, the search for resilient crops becomes even more compelling. Preserving resilient landraces, in fact, will widen our chance to respond to the need of feeding 8 billion people in a sustainable way and to withstand food-shortages due to global threats and climate change.

Fig. 1. Bird’s-eye view of the experimental field in Valle Gesso (Cuneo) (Aree Protette Alpi Marittime). Rye landraces are cultivated in order to inspect agronomic traits and kernel quality other than their genetic profiles.