Abstract
Despite its economic, social, biological, and cultural importance, wild forms of the genus Phaseolus are not well represented in germplasm banks, and they are at great risk due to changes in land use as well as climate change. To improve our understanding of the potential geographical distribution of wild beans (Phaseolus spp.) from Mexico and support in situ and ex situ conservation programs, we determined the climatic adaptation ranges of 29 species and two subspecies of Phaseolus collected throughout Mexico. Based on five biotic and 117 abiotic variables obtained from different databases—WorldClim, Global‐Aridity, and Global‐PET—we performed principal component and cluster analyses. Germplasm was distributed among 12 climatic types from a possible 28. The general climatic ranges were as follows: 8–3,083 m above sea level; 12.07–26.96°C annual mean temperature; 10.33–202.68 mm annual precipitation; 9.33–16.56 W/m2 of net radiation; 11.68–14.23 hr photoperiod; 0.06–1.57 aridity index; and 10–1,728 mm/month of annual potential evapotranspiration. Most descriptive variables (25) clustered species into two groups: One included germplasm from semihot climates, and the other included germplasm from temperate climates. Species clustering showed 45% to 54% coincidence with species previously grouped using molecular data. The species P. filiformis, P. purpusii, and P. maculatus were found at low‐humidity locations; these species could be used to improve our understanding of the extreme aridity adaptation mechanisms used by wild beans to avoid or tolerate climate change as well as to introgress favorable alleles into new cultivars adapted to hot, dry environments.
Highlights
Mexico is a center of origin, diversity, and domestication for many crops of global importance, including beans (Phaseolus spp.)
The Phaseolus genus includes 70–80 species distributed in the Americas, mainly in the Mesoamerican region (Gepts, 2014)
One classification system based on geographical information systems (GIS) aids in the development of a conservation strategy by enabling the retro-classification of germplasm collections, facilitating efforts to focus on further exploration, and research in those regions with high probabilities of the presence of specific species or genotypes
Summary
Mexico is a center of origin, diversity, and domestication for many crops of global importance, including beans (Phaseolus spp.). One classification system based on GIS aids in the development of a conservation strategy by enabling the retro-classification of germplasm collections, facilitating efforts to focus on further exploration, and research in those regions with high probabilities of the presence of specific species or genotypes. This classification system facilitates the selection of areas for conservation and restoration as well as the prediction of responses to climate change (Elith & Franklin, 2013; Porfirio et al, 2014; Ramírez-Villegas et al, 2014; Wang et al, 2015). The goals of the present work were (1) to determine the climatic adaptation of 29 Phaseolus species from Mexico ( those species that represent poorly studied genetic reservoirs), (2) describe their potential geographical distribution, and (3) evaluate differences among the species based on climatic/ecological adaptation descriptors and their comparisons with previously reported genetic descriptors
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