Enhancing the conservation of crop wild relatives in Wales

Abstract

To feed the world's human population in the face of threats such as climate change, pests and diseases and land use change, crops will need to be bred which are more resilient and higher yielding. Crop wild relatives (CWR) are part of the solution to this as they contain higher levels of genetic diversity and contain beneficial traits, which can be used in crop improvement. CWR however, are also threatened and are generally poorly conserved; this is also true within Wales. Here, appropriate conservation for CWR in Wales is outlined to ensure the active and long-term maintenance of populations in situ and accessions ex situ. To achieve this, an inventory of 122 priority Welsh CWR was developed, hotspots of CWR taxon diversity were identified and a network of complementary genetic reserves was proposed. The Gower Peninsula was identified as the most taxon rich area of Wales for both common and rare/scarce CWR. Extensive gaps in ex situ collections were also identified for which further collecting is necessary. Implementation of the recommendations made will help to provide systematic and long-term conservation of CWR in Wales and will ensure this resource is available for use in crop improvement.

Keywords:

• crop wild relative
• food security
• gap analysis
• inventory
• prioritisation

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the EU Seventh Framework Programme funded project, PGR Secure ‘Characterization of biodiversity resources for wild crop relatives to improve crops by breeding’ (Grant agreement no. 266394) for providing the financial support for this project. We are grateful to South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre (SEWBReC), West Wales Biodiversity Information Centre (WWBIC), Biodiversity Information Service for Powys and Brecon Beacons National Park (BIS) and North Wales Environmental Information Service (Cofnod) for providing occurrence record datasets for the Welsh priority CWR. Particular thanks go to the many amateur and professional botanists submitting biological records to these record centres who have made this study possible. We also thank Kevin Walker and Tom Humphrey for providing access to the BSBI Distribution Database, the Millennium Seed Bank, RGB, Kew and Ianto Thomas for providing access to gene bank accession data.

Supplemental data and research materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at doi:10.1080/20423489.2015.1123965/description of location.