Most wild American grapevine species need urgent conservation help
Native Plants
The wine grapes and table grapes we eat today rely on wild grapevine cousins growing right now in Texas woodlands and Mexican hillsides to supply the disease resistance and climate toughness that keeps vineyards alive.
Researchers tracked down where 38 kinds of wild grapevines actually grow, from Canada down through Mexico into South America, and figured out what climates and terrain each one prefers. Turns out most of these wild vines aren't well protected, either in seed banks or in the wild parks and preserves where they naturally grow. That's a problem because these scrappy wild relatives carry genetic tricks, like drought tolerance or disease resistance, that plant breeders need to keep cultivated grapes healthy as growing conditions shift.
Key Findings
38 wild Vitis taxa were mapped across a range from southeastern Canada to southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of northern South America and the Caribbean
Central to southern Texas hosts up to 10 potentially overlapping (sympatric) wild grapevine taxa, the highest concentration found
25 of 38 taxa are urgent priority and 10 are high priority for improved seed bank (ex situ) conservation; 3 are urgent and 29 are high priority for improved habitat (in situ) protection
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists mapped 38 species of wild grapevines across the Americas and found that most are urgently in need of better conservation, since these wild plants hold genetic traits that could help future grape crops survive drought, disease, and changing climates.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Conservation gap analysis for wild grapevines ( <i>Vitis</i> L.) of the Americas
Societal Impact Statement Wild grapevines ( Vitis L.) native to the Americas are ecologically and culturally important plants that are also critical to the global cultivated grape industry as sourc...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus Vitis. Grapes are a non-climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.