Monitoring system and in situ conservation of endemic and threatened Beta patula Aiton populations in Madeira Region

• Autor(a) principal: Nóbrega, H.
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Freitas, G., Zavattieri, M. A., Ragonezi, C., Frese, L., Carvalho, M. A. A. Pinheiro de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.13/3852
• topic: Beta patula Aiton populations; Monitoring system; Conservation; Madeira (Portugal); .; Escola Superior de Tecnologias e Gestão; Faculdade de Ciências da Vida

t Madeira Archipelago is a hotspot for crop wild relatives (CWR) of crop cultures. Some of these CWR are present in very specific environments, such as, in Ponta de Sa˜o Lourenc¸o or Desertas Islands. One such species is Beta patula Aiton, a Critically Endan gered species which belongs to the Gene Pool 1b of cultivated beets. A continuous effort has been devel oped for its ex situ conservation through the storage of accessions (ISOP2512 and ISOP1911) in the ISO Plexis GeneBank at the University of Madeira Simultaneously, a series of studies have been carried out to understand the species’ ecogeographic and ecological requirements, to validate populations’ boundaries and sizes, and to establish population dynamics. This study includes a complete floristic survey at the B. patula locations of, Desembar cadouro islet (DI) with 12 (DI1–DI12) sampling sites, and Cha˜o islet (CI) with 3 (CI1–CI3). Several Biodiversity indices were calculated for these loca tions. Plot DI3 exhibited the highest values for Corrected Evenness (E0 = 0.77 ± 0.07), Shannon– Weaver Diversity Index (H0 = 2.48 ± 0.12), and Hill’s Index (N2 = 4.47 ± 0.72), with a total sum of 306 individuals of B. patula. The demographic status of B. patula populations in DI and CI was determined yearly between 2014 and 2018. The results show an average population size of 16,906 and 2917 plants, respectively. These data will be used for the estab lishment of a protocol to monitor and manage a genetic reserve for B. patula and other CWR. By doing so, our work will contribute to the implemen tation of the European genetic reserve network.