El papel de la Red Andaluza de Jardines Botánicos (RED) en la investigación sobre biodiversidad en Andalucía

The regional government of Andalusia has developed several actions to catalog and conserve the biodiversity. Focusing on plants, a remarkable action is the setting of a network of botanic gardens linked to protected natural areas. These gardens and protected areas contain a good representation of the flora and of endangered plant species of Andalusia, which represent a great potential for biodiversity research. This paper explores possibilities offered by these gardens for this research and shows some results obtained. First, these investigations focus on the historical past which determined the current evolutionary (phylogenetic) diversity of the woody flora by using genetic and genomic markers. Second, the representation of threatened flora in the gardens has allowed us to know their phylogenetic distinctness and to compare it with their rarity based on biogeographical and ecological aspects. Botanic gardens have supplied most of samples for DNA extraction to resolve these phylogenies. Finally, future research possibilities to know the effects of climate change on the natural systems of Andalusia are presented, using the gardens as phenological observation stations. The information on evolutionary past will be very relevant to ascertain its influence on the plant response to current and future climate changes