Publications

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Ecological and genomic vulnerability to climate change across native populations of Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora) Meise Botanic Garden

Yves Vigouroux, Dominique Crouzillat, Patrick Descombes, Christine Tranchant-Dubreuil, Catherine Kiwuka, Ucu Ucu Sumirat, Hyacinthe Legnate, Bonaventure Sonké, Pascal Musoli, Steven B. Janssens, et al.
The assessment of population vulnerability under climate change is crucial for planning conservation as well as for ensuring food security. Coffea canephora is, in its native habitat, an understorey tree that is mainly distributed in the lowland rainforests of tropical Africa. Also known as Robusta, its commercial value constitutes a significant revenue for many human populations in tropical countries. Comparing ecological and genomic ...

Targeted and Untargeted Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolomics for Chemical Profiling of Three Coffee Species Meise Botanic Garden

Andrea Montis, Florence Souard, Cedric Delporte, Piet Stoffelen, Caroline Stevigny, Pierre Van Antwerpen
While coffee beans have been studied for many years, researchers are showing a growing interest in coffee leaves and by-products, but little information is currently available on coffee species other than Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora. The aim of this work was to perform a targeted and untargeted metabolomics study on Coffea arabica, Coffea canephora and Coffea anthonyi. The application of the recent high-resolution mass spectrometry-based ...

African elements in Saramaccan Maroon plant names in Suriname Meise Botanic Garden

Charlotte I. E. A. Van't Klooster, Margot C van den Berg, Piet Stoffelen, Tinde R. Van Andel
The ancestors of the Saramaccan Maroons, who were brought as enslaved Africans to Suriname, used their ethnobotanical knowledge and native languages to name the flora in their new environment. Little is known about the influence of African languages on Saramaccan plant naming. We hypothesized that Saramaccan plant names were more influenced by Central African languages than found so far based on ethnobotanical research, mainly because data on ...

Coffee leaves: An upcoming novel food? Meise Botanic Garden

Andrea Montis, Florence Souard, Cédric Delporte, Piet Stoffelen, Caroline Stévigny, Pierre Van Antwerpen

Unlike those of coffee beans, the healthy properties of coffee leaves have been overlooked for a long time, even if they are consumed as a beverage by local communities of several African countries. Due to the presence of xanthines, diterpenes, xanthones, and several other polyphenol derivatives as main secondary metabolites, coffee leaves might be useful to prevent many daily disorders. At the same time, as for all bioactive molecules, ...

Four flowering plant species described from Katanga (D.R.Congo) are based on specimens collected in Guangxi, China. The H.A. Homblé collection in BR Meise Botanic Garden

Elmar Robbrecht, Sofie De Smedt, Paul Goetghebeur, Piet Stoffelen, Filip Verloove
The original set of botanical collections of the agronomist H.A. Homblé is conserved in the herbarium BR. Homblé was one of the first collectors (1911–1913) for the flora of Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many Homblé specimens were described as taxonomic novelties; 107 tropical African plant species are named after him. Before his colonial career in Katanga, Homblé stayed about two years (1909–1911) in Guangxi, China. His ...

Genetic diversity of native and cultivated Ugandan Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora Pierre ex A. Froehner): Climate influences, breeding potential and diversity conservation Meise Botanic Garden

Catherine Kiwuka, Eva Goudsmit, Rémi Tournebize, Sinara Oliveira De Aquino, Jacob C Douma, Laurence Bellanger, Dominique Crouzillat, Piet Stoffelen, Ucu Ucu Sumirat, Hyacinthe Legnaté, et al.
Wild genetic resources and their ability to adapt to environmental change are critically important in light of the projected climate change, while constituting the foundation of agricultural sustainability. To address the expected negative effects of climate change on Robusta coffee trees (Coffea canephora), collecting missions were conducted to explore its current native distribution in Uganda over a broad climatic range. Wild material from ...

Coffee Stores, from burner to barista Meise Botanic Garden

Greet Draye, Femke Paulussen, Piet Stoffelen
Een dampend kopje koffie biedt troost, afleiding of een ogenblik rust. Het hoort bij thuis, of net bij onderweg. Ook voor de intrigerende geschiedenis van de Belgische koffie is er geen gebrek aan invalshoeken. Bijvoorbeeld de koffieplant. Die werd in de zeventiende eeuw begeerd en beschermd onder Arabisch monopolie, maar groeide uit tot een plantageplant die wereldwijd succes oogstte. Tegenwoordig staat hij opnieuw onder druk, deze keer door de ...

Complex evolutionary history of coffees revealed by full plastid genomes and 28,800 nuclear SNP analyses, with particular emphasis on Coffea canephora (Robusta coffee) Meise Botanic Garden KU Leuven

Jean-Claude Charr, Andrea Garavito, Christophe Guyeux, Dominique Crouzillat, Patrick Descombes, Coralie Fournier, Serigne N. Ly, Eva N. Raharimalala, Jean-Jacques Rakotomalala, Piet Stoffelen, et al.
For decades coffees were associated with the genus Coffea. In 2011, the closely related genus Psilanthus was subsumed into Coffea. However, results obtained in 2017-based on 28,800 nuclear SNPs-indicated that there is not substantial phylogenetic support for this incorporation. In addition, a recent study of 16 plastid fullgenome sequences highlighted an incongruous placement of Coffea canephora (Robusta coffee) between maternal and nuclear ...