Climatic adaptation and ecological descriptors of wild beans from Mexico

Despite its economic, social, biological, and cultural importance, wild forms of the genus Phaseolus are not well represented in germplasm banks, and they are at great risk due to changes in land use as well as climate change. To improve our understanding of the potential geographical distribution of wild beans (Phaseolus spp.) from Mexico and support in situ and ex situ conservation programs, we determined the climatic adaptation ranges of 29 species and two subspecies of Phaseolus collected throughout Mexico. Based on five biotic and 117 abiotic variables obtained from different databases—WorldClim, Global‐Aridity, and Global‐PET—we performed principal component and cluster analyses. Germplasm was distributed among 12 climatic types from a possible 28. The general climatic ranges were as follows: 8–3,083 m above sea level; 12.07–26.96°C annual mean temperature; 10.33–202.68 mm annual precipitation; 9.33–16.56 W/m2 of net radiation; 11.68–14.23 hr photoperiod; 0.06–1.57 aridity index; ...