A gateway to plant genetic resources utilization

The world is faced with the need to increase crop productivity, develop cultivars that are better adapted to face environmental and biological constraints, and meet the needs of local communities. To meet these challenges farmers and breeders must have access to a wide range of plant genetic resources together with the essential information about the traits they possess that facilitate their utilization. Accurate characterization and evaluation data promote utilization, especially if it is available in an easily usable or standard format. Bioversity International (Bioversity) aims to stimulate the characterization and evaluation of germplasm collections by providing uniform standards for the description and exchange of information on plants. The CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) centres along with crop research institutes and networks have collaborated with Bioversity in the production of standards or 'descriptors'. Crop standards are an important tool that permits the international community to find and exchange information in a 'common' language. These standards have been adopted by the GCP (Generation Challenge Programme) Ontology Consortium, FAO WIEWS, EURISCO (the European Plant Genetic Resources Catalogue), CGIAR centres and are also being promoted by the Crop Genebank Knowledge Base and GRIN. These data standards constitute the backbone of the GENESYS global portal for access to information on plant genetic resources. GENESYS heralds a new paradigm for access to and use of these resources. GENESYS 1.0 was released in May 2011 following nearly three years of development by Bioversity on behalf of the CGIAR System-wide Genetic Resources Programme (SGRP) and in partnership with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. It brings together the passport data from three of the major genebank information networks-SINGER (the CGIAR System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources), EURISCO and GRIN, the USDA system which added further value through the inclusion of characterization and evaluation data

Making information accessible for the conservation and use of biodiversity. A novel initiative to facilitate access to information and use of agricultural and tree biodiversity

Poster presented at Science Week 2014 - Bioversity International HQ, Rome (Italy), 24-27 Feb 201

Core descriptors for in situ conservation of crop wild relatives v.1.

Crop wild relatives (CWR) are wild plant species that are more or less closely related to domesticated species, include crop progenitors and are a potential source of traits beneficial to our crops. Given their importance for agricultural research and development, their conservation is of high priority, in particular their in situ conservation that allows continued evolution of new adaptive traits as well as the maintenance of the breadth of genetic diversity present in the many CWR species. The core descriptors for in situ conservation of CWR are designed to facilitate the compilation and exchange of data, which are needed to develop and implement in situ conservation activities. They are compatible with Bioversity’s crop descriptor lists, the ‘FAO/Bioversity List of Multi-Crop Passport Descriptors V.2’ and IUCN red listing categories and criteria

Descripteurs de passeport multi-cultures FAO/Bioversity (V.2.1)

Cette liste des descripteurs de passeport “multi-cultures” (MCPD en anglais) V.2.1, est une mise à jour de la publication MCPD V.2 publiée en 2012. La liste MCPD V.2 était une révision de la première version FAOIPGRI publié en 2001 enrichie pour répondre aux besoins émergents, tels que l'utilisation plus large d'outils GPS, ou la mise en oeuvre du Système multilatéral d'accès et de partage des avantages du Traité international sur les ressources phytogénétiques pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture

Key characterization and evaluation descriptors: methodologies for the assessment of 22 crops

Bioversity International, with the financial support of the Global Crop Diversity Trust (the Trust) has led the development of strategic key sets of characterization and evaluation descriptors for 22 crops included in Annex I of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). The strategic sets of data standards are designed to facilitate access to and utilization of plant genetic resources information. Together with passport information, descriptors are critical to the effective sharing of evaluation data and to the efficient use of plant genetic resources. Passport, characterization and evaluation descriptors are included on the GENESYS portal, to facilitate access to information and promote the utilization of germplasm accessions. Along with the definitions of key sets of data standards, which are also available on Bioversity’s web site, the project also documented the standard development process, the outcome being these detailed methodologies for each crop. These guidelines provide the background information and objectives and give insights into the structure and elements of the methodologies developed by Bioversity to devise the crop-specific standards. They include specific methodologies for each crop and serve as a reference guide to develop further standards. Each methodology describes the development process for each key set of descriptors

A global information system for the conservation and sustainable use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA)

Poster presented at 2008 Annual Meeting of TD WG-Biodiversity Information Standards. Fremantle ( Australia), 19-24 Oct 200

The scientific information activity of Bioversity International: the descriptor lists

Effective sharing of information about genetic resources depends on everyone using the same “dictionary” – which is where the descriptor lists published by Bioversity International and its partners come in. In a 2006 survey 90% or more of respondents stated that descriptor lists published by Bioversity and its partners had contributed to the development of genebank databases, increased uniformity of documentation, increased their ability to work with partners, increased efficiency in collection management, and facilitated data exchange. The utility of Bioversity’s descriptors was rated higher than those from other sources, including UPOV and USDA-GRIN, scoring an average of 3.3 on a 4-point scale. The most common constraint to using Bioversity descriptor lists was the lack of descriptors for a particular species of interest – highlighting the need for Bioversity’s continued involvement in developing additional descriptor lists