Seminarios IHSM La Mayora - Juan Losada

Climate change predictions point to a growing risk of desertification in susceptible areas of the world, such as the Mediterranean basin, jeopardizing the survival of trees and their edible products. Thus, looking for new fruit tree varieties with drought resistance appears as a major goal for a more sustainable fruticulture. In this Seminar, I highlight the importance of the unique germplasm collections of the IHSM in searching for more resilient varieties to the stressful conditions generated by climate uncertainties. Our approach combines aspects of genetics, development, and cell biology to better understand the anatomy and hydraulics of subtropical fruit trees with different chromosome numbers, as well as their physiology under soil water scarcity. The final goal is to generate models that predict fruit tree performance as a function of ploidy under climate change scenarios.