Maize landraces from Northern Argentina: genetic clusters and ecological niches.

DOMINGUEZ, P.G.; GUTIERREZ, ANGELA VERONICA; VERA, P.; DEFACIO, RAQUEL; PUEBLA, A. F.; PANIEGO, N. B.; LIA, V. V.

Conferencia; Conservation Genomics at the Population Level; 2022

Maize (Zea mays) landraces are a strategic resource as a source of original alleles to face the current agriculture challenges. In Argentina, maize landraces are associated with aboriginal traditional farming systems, and their existence is at the present time being threatened by the introduction of commercial varieties bearing higher productivity and by the growing urbanization of communities. Previous studies of landraces from Northern Argentina through microsatellite molecular markers indicated that they have high genetic variability and a clear structuring between two regions of the country: the Northwest (NW) and the Northeast (NE) (Bracco et al. 2016; Rivas et al. 2022). In the present work, we use double digest restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq) to further explore the population structure of these landraces and the genetic groups to which they belong. We also applied a maximum entropy modelling to infer the ecological niches and distributions of the American maize landrace genetic groups using climate data for historical and future conditions.