MODELING CLIMATIC SIMILARITIES IN MEDITERRANEAN AREAS - A POTENTIAL TOOL FOR PLANT GENETIC-RESOURCES AND BREEDING PROGRAMS

Several locations with mediterranean climates were used to test the us e of a software modelling programme called CLIMEX. This programme pred icts the similarity of a nominated site to other locations within a sp ecified area. For this study a number of locations were chosen in Moro cco, Turkey and southern Australia and compared with locations in Medi terranean Europe, north Africa and west Asia. A similarity index lists the percentage similarity of Mediterranean locations to the nominated site. A map and climate graph are shown for five of the specified loc ations. The robustness of the model was tested at two locations, Merre din and Turretfield in Australia, using a number of climatic simulatio ns. The importance of rainfall pattern, and the affect of low humidity , to the agricultural system of southern Australia are considered and the potential relevance of this model to plant collection and plant br eeding programmes is discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rig hts reserved.