In situ /on farm conservation of agrobiodiversity

Introduction to in situ/on farm conservation

Introduction to Herbarium Collection and Management

Introduction to Herbarium Collection and Management

Introduction to ecogeographic / botanical surveys

Approaches for ecogeographic and botanic surveys

Review of Crop Wild Relative Conservation and Use in West Asia and North Africa

Ensuring global food security in the face of climate change is critical to human survival. With a predicted human population of 9.6 billion in 2050 and the demand for food supplies expected to increase by 60% globally, but with a parallel potential reduction in crop production for wheat by 6.0%, rice by 3.2%, maize by 7.4%, and soybean by 3.1% by the end of the century, maintaining future food security will be a challenge. One potential solution is new climate-smart varieties created using the breadth of diversity inherent in crop wild relatives (CWRs). Yet CWRs are threatened, with 16–35% regarded as threatened and a significantly higher percentage suffering genetic erosion. Additionally, they are under-conserved, 95% requiring additional ex situ collections and less than 1% being actively conserved in situ; they also often grow naturally in disturbed habitats limiting standard conservation measures. The urgent requirement for active CWR conservation is widely recognized in the global policy context (Convention on Biological Diversity post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, UN Sustainable Development Goals, the FAO Second Global Plan of Action for PGRFA, and the FAO Framework for Action on Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture) and breeders highlight that the lack of CWR diversity is unnecessarily limiting crop improvement. CWRs are not spread evenly across the globe; they are focused in hotspots and the hottest region for CWR diversity is in West Asia and North Africa (WANA). The region has about 40% of global priority taxa and the top 17 countries with maximum numbers of CWR taxa per unit area are all in WANA. Therefore, improved CWR active conservation in WANA is not only a regional but a critical global priority. To assist in the achievement of this goal, we will review the following topics for CWRs in the WANA region: (1) conservation status, (2) community-based conservation, (3) threat status, (4) diversity use, (5) CURE—CWR hub: (ICARDA Centre of Excellence), and (6) recommendations for research priorities. The implementation of the recommendations is likely to significantly improve CWRs in situ and ex situ conservation and will potentially at least double the availability of the full breadth of CWR diversity found in WANA to breeders, and so enhance regional and global food and nutritional security.<br/

Towards a practical threat assessment methodology for crop landraces

Crop landraces (LR), the traditional varieties of crops that have been maintained for millennia by repeated cycles of planting, harvesting, and selection, are genetically diverse compared to more modern varieties and provide one of the key components for crop improvement due to the ease of trait transfer within the crop species. However, LR diversity is increasingly threatened with genetic erosion and extinction by replacement with improved cultivars, lack of incentives for farmers to maintain traditional agricultural systems, and rising threats from climate change. Their active conservation is necessary to maintain this critical resource. However, as there are hundreds of thousands of LR and millions of LR populations for crops globally, active conservation is complex and resource-intensive. To assist in implementation, it is useful to be able to prioritise LR for conservation action and an obvious means of prioritisation is based on relative threat assessment. There have been several attempts to propose LR threat assessment methods, but none thus far has been widely accepted or applied. The aim of this paper is to present a novel, practical, standardised, and objective methodology for LR threat assessment derived from the widely applied IUCN Red Listing for wild species, involving the collation of time series information for LR population range, LR population trend, market, and farmer characteristics and LR context information. The collated information is compared to a set of threat criteria and an appropriate threat category is assigned to the LR when a threshold level is reached. The proposed methodology can be applied at national, regional, or global levels and any crop group

CGIAR genebank viability data reveal inconsistencies in seed collection management

Genebanks underpin global food security, conserving and distributing agrobiodiversity for use in research and breeding. The CGIAR collections include >700,000 seed accessions, held in trust as global public goods. However, the role of genebanks in contributing to global food security can only be realized if collections are effectively managed. Examination of the historical viability monitoring data from seven CGIAR genebanks confirmed that high seed viability was maintained for many decades for the various crops and forage species. However, departures from optimum management procedures were revealed, and there were insufficient data gathered to derive reliable estimates of longevity needed to better forecast regeneration requirements, estimate the size of seed lots that should be stored, and optimize accession monitoring intervals

Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change: A Synopsis of Coordinated National Crop Wild Relative Seed Collecting Programs across Five Continents

The Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change Project set out to improve the diversity, quantity, and accessibility of germplasm collections of crop wild relatives (CWR). Between 2013 and 2018, partners in 25 countries, heirs to the globetrotting legacy of Nikolai Vavilov, undertook seed collecting expeditions targeting CWR of 28 crops of global significance for agriculture. Here, we describe the implementation of the 25 national collecting programs and present the key results. A total of 4587 unique seed samples from at least 355 CWR taxa were collected, conserved ex situ, safety duplicated in national and international genebanks, and made available through the Multilateral System (MLS) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Plant Treaty). Collections of CWR were made for all 28 targeted crops. Potato and eggplant were the most collected genepools, although the greatest number of primary genepool collections were made for rice. Overall, alfalfa, Bambara groundnut, grass pea and wheat were the genepools for which targets were best achieved. Several of the newly collected samples have already been used in pre-breeding programs to adapt crops to future challenges.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Systematics Of Prunus Subgenus Amygdalus Monograph And Phylogeny

Almonds (Prunus dulcis) and peaches (Prunus persica), two of the most economically important fruit crops in subtropical and temperate climates, are members of the genus Prunus L. subgenus Amygdalus L. Previous hypotheses of relationships within Prunus were either based on one or a few morphological characters, or when molecular data were used, the Amygdalus group was represented by only a few species. Furthermore, the latest monograph for Amygdalus is more than 150 years old. Here, a monograph of Prunus subgenus Amygdalus including 24 species is presented. A key to the identification of species within Amygdalus, descriptions, diagnostic characters, phenology, habitat, distribution maps and specimens examined are presented. Morphological and molecular sequence data obtained from six chloroplast gene regions (trnL-trnL-trnF, trnS-trnG-trnG, trnH-psbA, rpL16, ndhF-rpL32 and partially trnQ-rps16) and one nuclear gene, s6pdh, were used in this study to construct a phylogeny from a comprehensive sample of Amygdalus species and additional relevant outgroup taxa. A very strongly supported clade of Prunus subg. Amygdalus was recovered, and includes both almonds and peaches. Amygdalus is diagnosed by having pubescent drupes, mostly splitting mesocarp, endocarp pitted or grooved, and sepal margins entire. Based on these results, P. tenella and P. petunikowii of the section Chamaeamygdalus Focke and P. triloba and P. pedunculata of the section Louiseania Carr. should be excluded from subg. Amygdalus. Relationships of Amygdalus with other Prunus species remain unresolved because it occurred in a polytomy including section Chamaeamydalus and subgenus Prunus s.l. Within Amygdalus, two clades are strongly supported. The first is section Persica Mill, including the six species: P. persica (including P. ferganensis), P. kansuensis, P. mira and P. davidiana, in addition to P. tangutica and P. mongolica. The second clade is the almond clade, section Amygdalus s.s., within which strongly supported resolution is lacking. Detailed results of individual and combined datasets are presented and character evolution is discussed

Conservation approaches

Conservation approaches