Phylogenetic Relationship Among Wild and Cultivated Grapevine in Sicily: A Hotspot in the Middle of the Mediterranean Basin

Abstract

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera ssp. sativa) is a perennial crop especially important for wine and fruit production. The species is highly polymorphic with thousands of different varieties selected by farmers and clonally propagated. However, it is still debated whether grapevine domestication from its wild ancestor (V. vinifera ssp. sylvestris) has been a single event or rather it occurred on multiple occasions during the diffusion of its cultivation across the Mediterranean. Located in the center of the Basin, Sicily is its largest island and has served as a hotspot for all civilizations that have crossed the Mediterranean throughout history. Hundreds of unique grapevine cultivars are still cultivated in Sicily and its surrounding minor islands, though most of them are menaced by extinction. Wild grapevine is also present with isolated populations thriving along riverbanks. With the aim to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships among Sicilian varieties, and to assess the possible contribution of indigenous wild populations to the genetic makeup of cultivated grapevine, we analyzed 170 domestic cultivars and 125 wild plants, collected from 10 different populations, with 23 SSR markers. We also compared our data with published dataset from Eurasia. Results show that Sicilian wild populations are related to the cultivated Sicilian and Italian germplasm, suggesting events of introgression and/or domestication of local varieties.

Genetic Structure and Relationships among Wild and Cultivated Grapevines from Central Europe and Part of the Western Balkan Peninsula

“…Genetic diversity in the studied set of individuals, expressed through the expected and observed heterozygosities of SSR markers, was greater in vinifera than in sylvestris, as seen in previous studies [ 9 , 16 , 18 , 20 ]. Among sylvestris populations, the greatest heterozygosity was observed in P06 (Croatia) and the lowest for P08 (Germany), indicating heterozygosity decreased from east to west.…”

“…There was introgression of Italian wild grapes in the genome of some Italian cultivated varieties, in particular some local Tuscan varieties [20]. The relatively isolated Sicilian pool of wild populations was closely related to the local cultivated germplasm [9]. Clustering with local varieties was also observed in Portugal [16].…”

“…One of the most important differentiating traits between cultivated and wild grapevine is flower morphology [7,9]. Wild grapes have dioecious male and female plants, while cultivated varieties are mostly hermaphrodites.…”

The Cypriot Indigenous Grapevine Germplasm Is a Multi-Clonal Varietal Mixture

“…Despite the fact that data across studies are somewhat difficult to compare, since there are discrepancies in the number of loci and accessions employed, several common conclusions can still be attained [ 16 ]. In general, even though reports employ grapevine datasets of a few dozens to more than thousand accessions (focusing on eight to eleven loci), average to elevated heterozygosity values are reported [ 42 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ]. Thus, it seems that diversity is present within cultivars, as well as across cultivars.…”

An Updated Checklist of the Sicilian Native Edible Plants: Preserving the Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Century-Old Agro-Pastoral Landscapes

“…An increasing amount of field data highlights the fact that the Mediterranean countries were not only important as a target of the spread of the so-called 'Neolithic revolution' but played an active role in the early cultivation of the wild ecotypes of several woody species, such as Olea europaea (Diez et al, 2015), Ceratonia siliqua (Viruel et al, 2019), and Vitis vinifera (De Michele et al, 2019), as well as of many vegetables (e.g., Allium spp., Brassica spp., Cynara spp., etc.) and cereal crops (e.g., Avena spp., Hordeum spp., and Triticum spp.…”