iWAMP 2024

iWAMP 2024

Alpine and Mountain Plants - from Biodiversity to Application

The 1st international Workshop on Alpine and Mountain Plants - iWAMP 2024 - will be held in San Michele all’Adige (Italy), in the region Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol which is in the heart of the Italian Alps, well renowned for itsexcellent wine, famous fruits, and beautiful Dolomites mountains.

Alpine and mountain regions are well recognized as a hotspot of plant biodiversity including high diversity of ethnopharmaceutically relevant species. Numerous plants or its parts and their preparations have been used for the treatment of various diseases since centuries. Additionally, derived extracts and preparations are nowadays also important for food and cosmetic applications.

Nowadays, the unique diversity is significantly threatened due to climate change, changes in rural life and culture but also by industrial exploitation of natural plant genetic resources for application in different industrial sectors (e.g., food, nutraceutical, cosmetic, cosmeceutical, pharmaceutical). To counteract this worldwide trend conservations strategies, domestication, and breeding of alpine and mountain plants for improved cultivation under moderate climate conditions are, beside strong protections in legal regulations, implemented. However, as non-model species the domestication, cultivation and breeding of these wild plants is often very challenging but are strongly supported by modern scientific approaches, i.e., phytochemistry and metabolomics, genetics, but also biotechnology.

iWAMP 2024 will offer the unique opportunity to bring together international and interdisciplinary experts from different topics such as biodiversity, germplasm and genetic resources, wild collection and regulation, domestication, breeding and cultivation, phytochemistry, metabolomics and biotechnology while also applications in health, nutrition and cosmetics.

The first version of the iWAMP shall initiate a series of biannual meetings for cutting edge alpine and mountain plant research dissemination. The proximity of many European countries with numerous R&D groups working in the fields covered by the workshop will surely contribute to the success of the 1st edition.

iWAMP 2024 is an opportunity for academics and industrials to establish contacts with other scientists working with alpine and mountain plants worldwide.

Stefan Martens