Hilly and sub-mountain areas are rich in plant agrobiodiversity: the case of Italy

Landraces are agri-food and historical-cultural heritage but they are undergoing losses worldwide. During the last century, the progressive substitution of these traditional cultivars with modern, high yielding varieties, determined a reduction of about 75% of global agrobiodiversity. Italy is taking action to counteract this problem by following European guidelines. One of the most important measures is the Agrobiodiversity National Register (ANR; Law n. 194/2015), but many Italian regions currently appear without any landraces and around 80% of landraces listed are trees, with less detailed data on herbaceous species. The aim of this study was to investigate the state of Italian herbaceous landraces preserved on farms (in situ) by merging and analysing data contained in the main databases on plant agrobiodiversity in Italy. Data were georeferenced, organized by botanic families and Italian regions, and analysed by GIS and R software. A total of 1615 herbaceous landraces were found (versus the 416 recorded in the ANR) subdivided into cereals (321), legumes (535), potatoes (67), tomatoes (135), onions (72), other (485). Poaceae, Fabaceae and Solanaceae together comprise 70% of all herbaceous landraces and mostly preserved/grown in areas between 150 and 800 m a.s.l. Their distribution throughout Italy was analysed, highlighting how some hilly and sub- mountain areas of the Apennines and Alps are hotspots of herbaceous landraces (Fig.1) due to anthropic and environmental factors. It is hoped that the database will be useful to enrich the ANR; in fact, the total number of herbaceous landrace varieties could increase by about 290% due to this study. The results of this research contributed to the knowledge on herbaceous landraces cultivated in Italy, that require scientific attention, and they could trigger actions of characterization, conservation and promotion of these plant resources. The data of this inventory are available open source at the following link: https://www.unimontagna.it/servizi/mappatura-agrobiodiversita-vegetale/ . The database will be supplemented with maintainer details, cultivation, usage, and specific threats and that information and periodically updated to monitor changes in on-farm maintained landrace and agrobiodiversity.