Diversity Of Crop Wild Relatives Research Articles

Enhancing the conservation of crop wild relatives in Wales

Humans require resilient, rapidly renewable and sustainable supplies of food and many other plant-derived supplies. However, the combined effects of climate change and population growth compromise the provision of these supplies particularly in respect to global food security. Crop wild relatives (CWR) contain higher genetic diversity than crops and harbour traits that can improve crop resilience and yield through plant breeding. However, in common with most countries, CWR are poorly conserved in England. There is currently no provision for long-term CWR conservation in situ, and comprehensive ex situ collection and storage of CWR is also lacking. However, there is a commitment to achieve their conservation in England’s Biodiversity Strategy and the UK has international commitments to do so as part of the Global Plant Conservation Strategy. Here, we identify a series of measures that could enhance the conservation of English CWR, thereby supporting the achievement of these national and international objectives. We provide an inventory of 148 priority English CWR, highlight hotspots of CWR diversity in sites including The Lizard Peninsula, the Dorset coast and Cambridgeshire and suggest appropriate sites for the establishment of a complementary network of genetic reserves. We also identify individual in situ and ex situ priorities for each English CWR. Based on these analyses, we make recommendations whose implementation could provide effective, long-term conservation of English CWR whilst facilitating their use in crop improvement.

Distribution of crop wild relatives of conservation priority in the UK landscape

Many crop species suffer from a lack of genetic diversity which reduces the ability of cultivars to withstand new pests or environmental stresses. The wild relatives of crop plants are an important source of genetic variation and can be used to introduce new traits into existing crops. Identification and conservation of crop wild relatives (CWR) is, therefore, an important step to safeguard future food security. Recent efforts have identified geographical hotspots of CWR diversity in several countries but, as yet, there have been no surveys to identify the habitats and landscape features within these areas that might be most suitable for conservation efforts. Here, we use a UK-wide vegetation survey covering a range of both habitats and landscape features (e.g. fields, hedgerows, waterways and roadsides) to identify the habitats and features with the highest proportion of CWR identified as priority taxa for conservation. Priority CWR were most abundant in grassland habitats, although this was most striking in CWR related to forage and fodder crops. CWR related to food crops were most common in cropped and weedy areas, fertile grassland and lowland woodland. Within habitats, CWR occurrence was significantly associated with linear features including hedgerows, roadsides, field boundaries and field margins. Our findings indicate that CWR of conservation interest are often associated with disturbed habitats and landscape features that are not considered as priorities under site-based conservation measures. We suggest that efforts to maintain linear features in hotspots of CWR diversity would be most effective at conserving the UK's CWR resource.

Enhancing the conservation of crop wild relatives in England.

Humans require resilient, rapidly renewable and sustainable supplies of food and many other plant-derived supplies. However, the combined effects of climate change and population growth compromise the provision of these supplies particularly in respect to global food security. Crop wild relatives (CWR) contain higher genetic diversity than crops and harbour traits that can improve crop resilience and yield through plant breeding. However, in common with most countries, CWR are poorly conserved in England. There is currently no provision for long-term CWR conservation in situ, and comprehensive ex situ collection and storage of CWR is also lacking. However, there is a commitment to achieve their conservation in England’s Biodiversity Strategy and the UK has international commitments to do so as part of the Global Plant Conservation Strategy. Here, we identify a series of measures that could enhance the conservation of English CWR, thereby supporting the achievement of these national and international objectives. We provide an inventory of 148 priority English CWR, highlight hotspots of CWR diversity in sites including The Lizard Peninsula, the Dorset coast and Cambridgeshire and suggest appropriate sites for the establishment of a complementary network of genetic reserves. We also identify individual in situ and ex situ priorities for each English CWR. Based on these analyses, we make recommendations whose implementation could provide effective, long-term conservation of English CWR whilst facilitating their use in crop improvement.

Diversity of Crop Wild Relatives and Edible Wild Plants in Ethiopia

Vavilov and other authors have indicated that, Ethiopia is a center of origin and/or diversity for many economically important crops species such as Coffea arabica, Enset ventricosum, Eragrostis tef, Guizotia abyssinica, Hordeum vulgare, Sorghum bicolor, Triticum durum and others. In most cases the distribution of crop wild relatives is correlated with the diversity of flora within a country. Therefore, Ethiopia is not only a center of origin and diversity of many cultivated plants, but also a source for important crop wild relatives. Wild and weedy relatives of many crops such as: Eragrostis tef, Eleusine crocana, Sorgum bicolor, Lens culinaris, Lathyrus stativus, Guzotia abyssinica, Plectranthus edulis and others with their distribution within the county is discussed. On the other hand, consumption of edible wild plants is common in Ethiopia. Studies showed that, there are more than 413 edible wild plants in Ethiopia, which belongs to 224 genera from 77 families. Some of the edible wild fruits includes: Carissa spinarium, Cordia africana, Dovyalis abyssinica, Ficus spp., Grewia spp., Mimusops kummel, Rosa abyssinica, Rubus apetalus, Syzigium guineense, Ximenia americana, Ziziphus spina-Christi and others. In addition to their food values, edible wild plants are also used as source of income. Even though, the diversity of crop wild relatives and wild edible plants is high in Ethiopia; several factors which affects the natural and agricultural ecosystems are affecting the resource severely. Among which, human induced threats such as deforestation of the natural vegetation, overgrazing, land fragmentation, wildfire, application of broad spectrum herbicides in agricultural fields are the major once. These coupled with the natural catastrophes such as pest and diseases, drought and other effects of climate change are being threatening the resources. Therefore, an immediate measure which can alleviate these problems and which surpasses the speed of loss of the resources is crucial.

Development of a national crop wild relative conservation strategy for Cyprus

Growing research interest in crop wild relatives (CWR) has highlighted their value for crop improvement, particularly to mitigate the impact of climate change and contribute to global food security. As most conservation activities are implemented at national level there is a requirement for each country to develop and implement a national CWR conservation strategy. This will contribute to regional and global CWR conservation actions and so help achieve CBD Aichi Targets 13 of improved genetic conservation of socio-economically important taxa. Cyprus has historically lacked systematic CWR conservation but is rich in CWR diversity being located in the eastern Mediterranean Vavilov centre and abutting the Fertile Crescent. Therefore a more coherent approach to CWR conservation is desirable. From an initial checklist of 1,722 Cypriot CWR taxa, 178 CWR were prioritized and eco geographic data was collated and analysed using GIS techniques. The Troodos and Pafos mountains are CWR hotspots and ten priority sites containing the genetic diversity of 74.7 % of priority CWR taxa were identified. These will form the basis of a national network of in situ genetic reserves and 78 priority CWR taxa that have no accessions in the national Cyprus gene bank are highlighted for collection and ex situ storage.

An Inventory of Crop Wild Relatives of the United States

ABSTRACTThe use of crop wild relatives (CWRs) in breeding is likely to continue to intensify as utilization techniques improve and crop adaptation to climate change becomes more pressing. Significant gaps remain in the conservation of these genetic resources. As a first step toward a national strategy for the conservation of CWRs, we present an inventory of taxa occurring in the United States, with suggested prioritization of species based on potential value in crop improvement. We listed 4600 taxa from 985 genera and 194 plant families, including CWRs of potential value via breeding as well as wild species of direct use for food, forage, medicine, herb, ornamental, and/or environmental restoration purposes. United States CWRs are related to a broad range of important food, forage and feed, medicinal, ornamental, and industrial crops. Some potentially valuable species are threatened in the wild, including relatives of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.), walnut (Juglans regia L.), pepo squash (Cucurbita pepo L.), wild rice (Zizania L.), raspberry (Rubus idaeus L.), and plum (Prunus salicina Lindl.), and few accessions of such taxa are currently conserved ex situ. We prioritize 821 taxa from 69 genera primarily related to major food crops, particularly the approximately 285 native taxa from 30 genera that are most closely related to such crops. Both the urgent collection for ex situ conservation and the management of such taxa in protected areas are warranted, necessitating partnerships between concerned organizations, aligned with regional and global initiatives to conserve and provide access to CWR diversity.

Introgression of transgenic crop alleles: Its evolutionary impacts on conserving genetic diversity of crop wild relatives

AbstractEffective conservation of crop wild relative (CWR) species is essential for the sustainable use and genetic improvement of crop varieties, which offers greater opportunities for world food security, particularly in modern agroecosystems where CWR diversity is under severe threat. Factors such as habitat fragmentation, human disturbances, global climate change, and invasion of harmful alien species have been identified to be responsible for losses and threats to CWR diversity. However, a neglected factor, gene introgression from domesticated species through repeated outcrossing, may have a significant impact on CWR diversity. Introgression can influence genetic diversity and evolutionary processes of CWR populations through effects such as demographic swarming, genetic assimilation, and selective sweep. When largely enhancing or reducing fitness of wild plants, the introgression of crop genes will impose more significant genetic and evolutionary impacts on CWR populations, leading to undesired consequences for conserved CWR populations and species. This situation is particularly true when genetically engineered (GE) crops are deployed for commercial cultivation. It is argued that a GE crop usually contains transgenes with strong natural selection advantages, and such transgenes introgressed into CWR populations may have strong impacts on their genetic diversity and evolutionary processes, threatening their conservation. This article reviews the challenge of crop–wild gene flow, and particularly transgene introgression from GE crops, for the in situ conservation of wild relative species. The design of effective management strategies for conserving CWR species under the scenario of extensive cultivation of GE crops is also discussed.

CWRML: representing crop wild relative conservation and use data in XML.

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.

Creation and use of a national inventory of crop wild relatives

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2010 target of achieving a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth is particularly pertinent for crop wild relatives (CWR). These taxa are directly associated with wealth creation and food security as they include the wild crop progenitors possessing many beneficial traits that can be bred into crops to address the changing environmental and market demands. These species are being eroded yet they have been widely neglected by national agencies because agricultural agencies generally have no responsibility for conservation and ecological conservation agencies tend to focus their efforts on habitat or rare and threatened taxa conservation. If the CBD 2010 target is to be achieved for CWR taxa there is a need for a complex interdisciplinary approach that outlines what diversity is present, what threatens that diversity and how it might be best conserved for use by future generations. When attempting to address these issues within the United Kingdom several key topics were identified: (1) creation of a national CWR inventory, (2) analysis of the national CWR inventory content, (3) national patterns of CWR distribution, (4) threat status for CWR diversity, (5) assessment of current conservation actions, (6) identification of priority sites for CWR conservation, and (7) creation of CWR conservation action plans. These issues are used to formulate an effective national conservation strategy for UK CWR diversity.

Conservation and sustainable use of crop wild relatives

Conservation of crop wild relatives (CWRs) is a complex interdisciplinary process that is being addressed by various national and international initiatives, including two Global Environment Facility projects (‘ In situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives through Enhanced Information Management and Field Application’ and ‘Design, Testing and Evaluation of Best Practices for in situ Conservation of Economically Important Wild Species’), the European Community-funded project ‘European Crop Wild Relative Diversity Assessment and Conservation Forum (PGR Forum)’ and the European ‘ In situ and On Farm Network’. The key issues that have arisen are: (1) the definition of what constitutes a CWR, (2) the need for national and regional information systems and a global system, (3) development and application of priority-determining mechanisms, (4) the incorporation of the conservation of CWRs into existing national, regional and international PGR programmes, (5) assessment of the effectiveness of conservation actions, (6) awareness of the importance of CWRs in agricultural development at local, national and international levels both for the scientific and lay communities and (7) policy development and legal framework. The above issues are illustrated by work on the conservation of a group of legumes known as grasspea chicklings, vetchlings, and horticultural ornamental peas ( Lathyrus spp.) in their European and Mediterranean centre of diversity.