Diversity and distribution of andean tubers: an agrogeographic analysis

Abstract

Andean tubers are a group of basic plants in the security and food sovereignty of Andean community for thousands of years. The conservation of the infra and interspecific diversity of these plants is a strategy for environmental adaptation rooted in the high-Andean cultural identity. Solanum tuberosum, Oxalis tuberosa, Tropaeolum tuberosum and Ullucus tuberosus, have in common that they develop edible modified stems with a wide variety of shapes, colors, and flavors, and these are cultivated in the Andean countries. The high diversity of Andean tuberous species is heterogeneously distributed and concentrated in micro-centers of diversification distributed in South American countries. The aim of this work was to determine the general distribution pattern of the four mentioned species and their agrogeographic nodes. With the coordinates of presence of these four species, registered in the GBIF platform (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), biogeographical methods were applied to model the individual traces that show the distribution pattern of each species and through the intersection of these, a generalized trace that makes visible the distribution patterns of Andean tubers, as well as their agro-geographical nodes. The greatest diversity of the four species is concentrated in these intersections, favoring domestication scenarios. Some micro-centers of diversity identified, correspond to those defined in the investigations of morphological or molecular characterizations. The main nodes were found in Peru and Ecuador between the biogeographic provinces of Puno, in the South American Transition Zone and the Yungas, from the southern Brazilian domain. The study of the geographical distribution patterns of cultivated plants allows to identify the patterns of plant exchange of the human groups involved in their management. The study of the geographical distribution patterns of cultivated plants allows to identify the patterns of plant exchange of the human groups involved in their management.