Using the genus Vitis to investigate Genomic Diversity and Climate Change

Brando s Gaut

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, USA

bgaut@uci.edu

Link to onsite registration: https://duo.dr13.cnrs.fr/public/evenement/index

Link to seminar: TBA

I will summarize some of our recent work that focuses on using, as a model system, the domesti-cated grapevine (Vitis vinifera) and its ecological diverse Crop Wild Relatives (CWRs) from North America. I hope to briefly touch on three themes. The first is the pervasive phenomenon of genic deletion in long-term, clonally propagated plant lineages. Given their ancient histories, grapevine varieties are particularly fitting foci for this work. A second theme is the organization and evolution of the sex-determining locus. Grapevines are dioecious in the wild, but they reverted to hermaph-rodity during domestication. What are the genes responsible for sex determination, and how did they revert to hermaphrodites? Finally, what is the conservation outlook for CWRs in the face of climate change, and how can we utilize them more effectively in the face of an urgent climate cri-sis? By merging population genetic inference and climate models, we are attempting to predict CWR germplasm that will be agronomically useful in future climates. Along the way, we have gen-erated insights into related phenomena, such as genetic load and the genetic basis of resistance to a devastating bacterial pathogen, Xylella fastidiosa.

Watch previous seminars on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrX4IsZ8WIFcDa0ZmC7rcQg