A prioritized crop wild relative inventory to help underpin global food security

The potentially devastating impacts of climate change on biodiversity and food security, together with the growing world population, means taking action to conserve crop wild relative (CWR) diversity is no longer an option—it is an urgent priority. CWR are species closely related to crops, including...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Biological conservation Vol. 167; pp. 265 - 275
Main Authors:	Vincent, Holly, Wiersema, John, Kell, Shelagh, Fielder, Hannah, Dobbie, Samantha, Castañeda-Álvarez, Nora P., Guarino, Luigi, Eastwood, Ruth, Leόn, Blanca, Maxted, Nigel
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-11-2013 Elsevier
Subjects:	Animal, plant and microbial ecology Applied ecology biodiversity Biological and medical sciences China climate change Conservation Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife Crop wild relative Crops Food security Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Gene pool General aspects Genes germplasm conservation Inventories Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking planning Plant conservation Plant genetic resources Pools Priorities Security Stockpiling Brazil Mexico ANE, Europe Europe ASW, Brazil China, People's Rep Gene pool Food security Plant genetic resources Crop wild relative Plant conservation Genetic resource Environmental factor Food supply Inventory Environmental protection
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Summary:	The potentially devastating impacts of climate change on biodiversity and food security, together with the growing world population, means taking action to conserve crop wild relative (CWR) diversity is no longer an option—it is an urgent priority. CWR are species closely related to crops, including their progenitors, which have potential to contribute traits for crop improvement. However, their utilisation is hampered by a lack of systematic conservation which in turn is due to a lack of clarity over their identity. We used gene pool and taxon group concepts to estimate CWR relatedness for 173 priority crops to create the Harlan and de Wet inventory of globally important CWR taxa. Further taxa more remotely related to crops were added if they have historically been found to have useful traits for crop improvement. The inventory contains 1667 taxa, divided between 37 families, 108 genera, 1392 species and 299 sub-specific taxa. The region with the highest number of priority CWR is western Asia with 262 taxa, followed by China with 222 and southeastern Europe with 181. Within the primary gene pool, 242 taxa were found to be under-represented in ex situ collections and the countries identified as the highest priority for further germplasm collection are China, Mexico and Brazil. The inventory database is web-enabled (http://www.cwrdiversity.org/checklist/) and can be used to facilitate in situ and ex situ conservation planning at global, regional and national levels.
Bibliography:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.08.011 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0006-3207 1873-2917
DOI:	10.1016/j.biocon.2013.08.011