Evaluación de la diversidad genética de la Monastrell, una variedad antigua en la provincia de Alicante (España) mediante Genotipado por Secuenciación (GBS)

Abstract

Monastrell variety, also known as Mourvedre, is cultivated mainly in the southeast of Spain in more than 45,000 ha. It is an ancient variety, whose origins are not known with certainty, highly adapted to the dry and warm climate of the southeast Spanish. The existence of a great clonal diversity is well known but, although some clonal selection programs have been carried out (Murcia, Bandol, etc.), the genetic diversity has not been evaluated to date. The measure of this diversity is urgent, since very old vines have been plucked in recent years. We have initiated a project to estimate the genetic diversity of the conserved clones of this variety through GBS (Genotyping by Sequencing). To carry out this analysis, a survey was carried out covering the whole area of Monastrell cultivation in the Alicante Denomination of Origin (D.O.). We selected 46 vines from 46 different vineyards, always prioritizing the oldest vines at each sampling site. The GBS has allowed us to obtain between 0.54 and 1.17 million of reads per sample, of which between 73 and 78% have been mapped to the reference genome developed by the French-Italian consortium (vvinifera.IGGP 12x) with a mapping quality above threshold. More than 100,000 SNPs have been identified, ranging from 14,000 to 43,000 per sample, with a coverage greater than 10X. A high percentage of these variants are polymorphic among Monastrell clones, confirming the existence of significant levels of genetic diversity. In addition, this analysis provides a high number of high quality SNPs well distributed across the genome, suitable for clone genotyping, which will allow the design of strategies to optimize its conservation and use.