Research area: Botany - Mycology - Agriculture
Coordinators: Graziano Rossi, Francesco Ferrari, Silvano Lodetti
ERC sectors: LS8 Environmental Biology, Ecology and Evolution
1. Monitoring and studying the effects of climate change on high-altitude flora
Plants generally benefit from a mild climate, but species adapted to growing in cold environments, such as alpine ones, are damaged both directly through heat shock and indirectly by water shortages and competition with other species. Studying the effects of climate change on plants allows us to understand their response mechanisms to such events and to predict their future distribution.
2. Conservation and sustainable use of landraces and Crop Wild Relatives (CWR)
The main objective of the research is to stem the genetic erosion of cultivated species caused by increased agricultural production. This is achieved through the study of the morphological and genetic characteristics of both traditional local cultivars, characterized by greater adaptability to biotic (e.g., parasites) and abiotic (e.g., climate) stresses, and CWRs, spontaneous species from which cultivated plants derive. These plants retain important characteristics useful for addressing the challenges associated with climate change (e.g. drought) and their conservation and use therefore become fundamental for the future of agriculture.
Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK); European Genebank Integrated System (AEGIS); University of Innsbruck, Austria; University of Umea, Sweden; CNR ISAC, Bologna; Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Norvegia (Global Crop Diversity Trust, www.cwrdiversity.org/project/); Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economica agraria (CREA); Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie "L. Spallanzani" - Università degli Studi di Pavia; Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie e Ambientali - Produzione, Territorio, Agroenergia - Università degli Studi di Milano; Dipartimento di Scienze delle produzioni vegetali sostenibili - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Piacenza
1. GLORIA -Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (http://www.gloria.ac.at/)
2. L-TER Italia (http://www.lteritalia.it/)
3. RESILIENT - Buone pratiche per la salvaguardia e la coltivazione di varietà locali lombarde tradizionali di patata e mais in aree interne” (https://resilient.unipv.it/)
4. LA RAVA e la FAVA – ConseRvAzione, VAlorizzazione e caratterizzazione morFologicA e genetica di VArietà ortive “minori” locali (https://www.laravaelafava.it/)
5. CLOVER - Agroecosistemi e Conservazione in LOmbardia di specie VEgetali Rare di Direttiva Habitat” (https://clover.unipv.it)
6. La sostenibilità che include. Perfezionamento di un modello gestionale integrato di pratiche di agricoltura sociale per il territorio pavese” (https://www.coltivarevalore.it/project)
1.
Lodetti S. et al. 2024. A new approach for assessing winning and losing plant species facing climate change on the GLORIA alpine summits. Flora 310 (2024) 152441
Porro, F., Tomaselli, M., Abeli, T., ...Rossi, G., Carbognani, M. 2019. Could plant diversity metrics explain climate-driven vegetation changes on mountain summits of the GLORIA network? Biodiversity and Conservation, 28(13), pp. 3575–3596
Attorre, F., Abeli, T., Bacchetta, G., ...Conti, F., Orsenigo, S. (2018). How to include the impact of climate change in the extinction risk assessment of policy plant species? Journal for Nature Conservation, 2018, 44, pp. 43–49
2.
Landoni M. et al. 2024. PGRFAManagement of Outcrossing Plants Propagated by Seed:
From On-Farm to Ex Situ Conservation and Some Italian Maize Case Studies. Agronomy, 14, 1030.
Canella M. et al. 2022. An updated checklist of plant agrobiodiversity of northern Italy. Crop Evolution. volume 69, pp. 2159-2178
Stagnati L. et al. 2022. Morphological and Genetic Characterization of Local Maize
Accessions from Emilia Romagna Region, Italy. Sustainability, 14, 91.
Gianella, M., Balestrazzi, A., Pagano, A., ...Rossi, G., Guzzon, F (2020). Heteromorphic seeds of wheat wild relatives show germination niche differentiation. Plant Biology, 2020, 22(2), pp. 191–202