The results of collecting missions in Albania in 1941and 1993 and in South Italy in 1950 and in the eighties allowed a comparison to be made of the material cultivated. The number of landraces still cultivated recently, as compared to their former number, was the basis for the estimation of genetic erosion. Genetic erosion (GE) was calculated as GE = 100% -GI (Genetic integrity). Genetic erosion was found to be 72.4% in Albania and 72.8% in South Italy, respectively. These results prove the high degree of genetic erosion in landraces from different parts of the Mediterranean area. Apart from the economic conditions, several other factors are responsible for genetic erosion, among them breeding system, crop type (i.e., garden or field crop) and crop group (e.g., cereals, vegetables and pulses).The results show that in the areas investigated there are still landraces for in situ conservation. Ex situ conservation in genebanks proved to be a possibility. An integration process is necessary to prevent losses in crops which are difficult to propagate under ex situ conditions. The complementarity of both conservation methods is stressed.

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Twenty landraces of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L .) from Sarconi and Rotonda two locations of Basilicata, a Southern Italy region, were screened for variation in seed storage proteins (phaseolin and phytohemagglutinin) by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS/PAGE and IEF-SDS/PAGE) . No variation of the main seed protein fractions was observed within each landrace . Phaseolin patterns type C and T were exhibited from the landraces ; the type C resulted predominant with a frequency of 70% . Only the C type was observed for the landraces of Rotonda, T and C for those from Sarconi . Two variants were observed for the phytohemagglutinin by SDS-PAGE, one was common to eighteen landraces . However, these variants submitted to IEF-SDS/PAGE resulted similar to the type TG2 described by Brown . The importance to safeguard these landraces is stressed by the observation that the more spread commercial cultivars of common bean growing in Southern-Italy had a T phaseolin pattern . A reduction of C type diffusion could produce the loss a typical trait of common bean in Mediterranean regions .

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A collection of cowpea (376 accessions) together with two lesser collections of asparagus bean (cv-gr sesquipedalis, 22 accessions) and catjang bean (cv-gr biflora, 35 accessions) from 19 countries of origin, were characterized and evaluated for studying their genetic variability and diversification in relation to geographical provenances ; this aim was reached using both techniques of univariate and multivariate analysis (hierarchical analysis of variance, discriminant analysis of canonical variables and cluster analysis) . The results show clearly : a) the grouping of the origins in three main clusters ; b) that the cowpea from the USA is more similar to the Mediterranean cowpea than to the African one ; c) cowpea from centre of origin presented a shorter and broader pod, almost the same number of locules and a lower seed weight in comparison with other provenances ; d) on the average the cowpea from south-central Africa was the least variable, while the Mediterranean one recorded the most variable indicating a greater variability in this region of cultivation ; e) a high positive correlation (r = 0 .9) between flowering time and ripening time in all cv-grs, and that peduncle length is never correlated with other traits; f) a low mutual relation between genetic and geographical difference ; g) cv-grs were significantly different from one another in individual regions for almost all the descriptors .