Abstract
BackgroundCrop wild relatives are wild species that are closely related to crops. They are valuable as potential gene donors for crop improvement and may help to ensure food security for the future. However, they are becoming increasingly threatened in the wild and are inadequately conserved, both in situ and ex situ. Information about the conservation status and utilisation potential of crop wild relatives is diverse and dispersed, and no single agreed standard exists for representing such information; yet, this information is vital to ensure these species are effectively conserved and utilised. The European Community-funded project, European Crop Wild Relative Diversity Assessment and Conservation Forum, determined the minimum information requirements for the conservation and utilisation of crop wild relatives and created the Crop Wild Relative Information System, incorporating an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema to aid data sharing and exchange.ResultsCrop Wild Relative Markup Language (CWRML) was developed to represent the data necessary for crop wild relative conservation and ensure that they can be effectively utilised for crop improvement. The schema partitions data into taxon-, site-, and population-specific elements, to allow for integration with other more general conservation biology schemata which may emerge as accepted standards in the future. These elements are composed of sub-elements, which are structured in order to facilitate the use of the schema in a variety of crop wild relative conservation and use contexts. Pre-existing standards for data representation in conservation biology were reviewed and incorporated into the schema as restrictions on element data contents, where appropriate.ConclusionCWRML provides a flexible data communication format for representing in situ and ex situ conservation status of individual taxa as well as their utilisation potential. The development of the schema highlights a number of instances where additional standards-development may be valuable, particularly with regard to the representation of population-specific data and utilisation potential. As crop wild relatives are intrinsically no different to other wild plant species there is potential for the inclusion of CWRML data elements in the emerging standards for representation of biodiversity data.
Highlights
Crop wild relatives are wild species that are closely related to crops
A Crop Wild Relative Markup Language (CWRML) document consists of data in three main entities identified as categories of data required for crop wild relatives (CWR) conservation management and utilisation potential: the taxon under consideration, the sites at which the taxon occurs, and the populations of the taxon at individual sites [30]
The site information section contains a sequence of site elements, each containing a sequence of elements describing features of a specific geographical location, which are relevant to conservation and utilisation of CWR taxa extant at that site and for ex situ collection management
Summary
Crop wild relatives are wild species that are closely related to crops. They are valuable as potential gene donors for crop improvement and may help to ensure food security for the future. Current and predicted future climate change, the spread and evolution of pests, diseases and invasive species, the requirement to reduce energy inputs to agriculture and the continuing need to feed a world population expanding exponentially, pose significant challenges to our continued ability to feed and fuel humankind. In this dynamic environment, it is likely that we will increasingly need to utilise the broader crop gene pool to ensure that crop improvement can meet these challenges [1,2]. The focus of this study is in situ data, the schema developed does not exclude reference to or the inclusion of ex situ collections data
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