Abstract
Landraces are key elements of agricultural biodiversity that have long been considered a source of useful traits. Their importance goes beyond subsistence agriculture and the essential need to preserve genetic diversity, because landraces are farmer-developed populations that are often adapted to environmental conditions of significance to tackle environmental concerns. It is therefore increasingly important to identify adaptive traits in crop landraces and understand their molecular basis. This knowledge is potentially useful for promoting more sustainable agricultural techniques, reducing the environmental impact of high-input cropping systems, and diminishing the vulnerability of agriculture to global climate change. In this review, we present an overview of the opportunities and limitations offered by landraces’ genomics. We discuss how rapid advances in DNA sequencing techniques, plant phenotyping, and recombinant DNA-based biotechnology encourage both the identification and the validation of the genomic signature of local adaptation in crop landraces. The integration of ‘omics’ sciences, molecular population genetics, and field studies can provide information inaccessible with earlier technological tools. Although empirical knowledge on the genetic and genomic basis of local adaptation is still fragmented, it is predicted that genomic scans for adaptation will unlock an intraspecific molecular diversity that may be different from that of modern varieties.
Highlights
Landraces are key elements of agricultural biodiversity that have long been considered a source of useful traits
A rice variety originating from regions with poor soil was used to isolate the phosphorus-starvation tolerance 1 (PSTOL1) gene, which is absent in modern varieties [10,11]
Resilience, nutrition content, sensorial value, and compliance to low-input farming are traits that are controlled often by multiple genes. These features constitute the bulk of their local adaptation (LA) because they are the target of main farmer-mediated evolutionary forces
Summary
Public awareness on the importance of biodiversity conservation is strengthening over time [1]. Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) are the central components of agricultural biodiversity because they constitute the primary elements of the production process. Taking into account the trends and efforts of modern breeding, the main part of genetic diversity of cultivated species is expected to be found in traditional varieties, known as landraces. New genetic diversity has introduced exploiting crop wild relatives, gene flow, or mutation, plant breeding is usually accompanied by loss of allelic diversity. For different vegetables (e.g., tomato, summer squash, pepper, etc.), fruit size, color, or shape present a morphological variety absent in wild species [20], plant breeding may have unintentionally diminished fruit quality in exchange for production traits [21,22,23]. Landraces can have superior technological aptitude, which can be exploited for typical, highly-valued products, such as the San Marzano tomato tins and the Portuguese high quality maize bread [27,28]
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