scholarly journals The Potential of Payment for Ecosystem Services for Crop Wild Relative Conservation

Plants ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Tyack ◽  
Hannes Dempewolf ◽  
Colin K. Khoury

Crop wild relatives (CWR) have proven to be very valuable in agricultural breeding programs but remain a relatively under-utilized and under-protected resource. CWR have provided resistance to pests and diseases, abiotic stress tolerance, quality improvements and yield increases with the annual contribution of these traits to agriculture estimated at USD 115 billion globally and are considered to possess many valuable traits that have not yet been explored. The use of the genetic diversity found in CWR for breeding provides much-needed resilience to modern agricultural systems and has great potential to help sustainably increase agricultural production to feed a growing world population in the face of climate change and other stresses. A number of CWR taxa are at risk, however, necessitating coordinated local, national, regional and global efforts to preserve the genetic diversity of these plants through complementary in situ and ex situ conservation efforts. We discuss the absence of adequate institutional frameworks to incentivize CWR conservation services and propose payment for ecosystem services (PES) as an under-explored mechanism for financing these efforts. Such mechanisms could serve as a potentially powerful tool for enhancing the long-term protection of CWR.

Plants ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1446
Author(s):  
Lorraine Rodriguez-Bonilla ◽  
Karen A. Williams ◽  
Fabian Rodríguez Bonilla ◽  
Daniel Matusinec ◽  
Andrew Maule ◽  
...  

Knowledge of the genetic diversity in populations of crop wild relatives (CWR) can inform effective strategies for their conservation and facilitate utilization to solve agricultural challenges. Two crop wild relatives of the cultivated cranberry are widely distributed in the US. We studied 21 populations of Vaccinium macrocarpon Aiton and 24 populations of Vaccinium oxycoccos L. across much of their native ranges in the US using 32 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. We observed high levels of heterozygosity for both species across populations with private alleles ranging from 0 to 26. For V. macrocarpon, we found a total of 613 alleles and high levels of heterozygosity (HO = 0.99, HT = 0.75). We also observed high numbers of alleles (881) and levels of heterozygosity (HO = 0.71, HT = 0.80) in V. oxycoccos (4x). Our genetic analyses confirmed the field identification of a native population of V. macrocarpon on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in the state of Washington, far outside the previously reported range for the species. Our results will help to inform efforts of the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and the United States Forest Service (USFS) to conserve the most diverse and unique wild cranberry populations through ex situ preservation of germplasm and in situ conservation in designated sites on National Forests.


2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 153-160
Author(s):  
Oz Barazani ◽  
Nir Hanin ◽  
Prabodh Kumar Bajpai ◽  
Yoni Waitz ◽  
Michal Barzilai ◽  
...  

The winter annuals Brassica tournefortii and Raphanus raphanistrum (Brassicaceae) share similar habitats and life-history traits, but differ in their reproduction system (self-compatibility vs. self-incompatibility, respectively). The two phylogenetically close species offer means to assess the effect of reproductive biology on genetic diversity between and within populations. In general, genetic diversity between populations of B. tournefortii was higher than that found between populations of R. raphanistrum, while higher genetic diversity indices were evident within populations of R. raphanistrum. In addition, the results of pairwise genetic distances indicated that the genetic distances between populations can be associated to the species’ reproductive biology and not to the population’s distribution pattern. We discuss whether knowledge of reproductive and habitat characteristics can be used to predict genetic diversity when planning sampling scheme for ex situ conservation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. R. Ahuja

This study reviews the various conservation strategies applied to the four redwood species, namely coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Sierra redwood or giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) and South American redwood or alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides), which are endemic in the USA, China and South America, respectively. All four redwood genera belong to the family Cupressaceae; they are monospecific, share a number of common phenotypic traits, including red wood, and are threatened in their native ranges due to human activity and a changing climate. Therefore, the management objective should be to conserve representative populations of the native species with as much genetic diversity as possible for their future survival. Those representative populations exhibiting relatively high levels of genetic diversity should be selected for germplasm preservation and monitored during the conservation phase by using molecular markers. In situ and ex situ strategies for the preservation of germplasm of the redwoods are discussed in this study. A holistic in situ gene conservation strategy calls for the regeneration of a large number of diverse redwood genotypes that exhibit adequate levels of neutral and adaptive genetic variability, by generative and vegetative methods for their preservation and maintenance in their endemic locations. At the same time, it would be desirable to conserve the redwoods in new ex situ reserves, away from their endemic locations with similar as well as different environmental conditions for testing their growth and survival capacities. In addition, other ex situ strategies involving biotechnological approaches for preservation of seeds, tissues, pollen and DNA in genebanks should also be fully exploited in the face of global climate change.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 484-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Urazaliev ◽  
M. Yessimbekova ◽  
K. Mukin ◽  
A. Chirkin ◽  
G. Ismagulova

Cereal Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) are a very  important gene pool for cereal/wheat improvement. New genes for resistance to diseases and pests are urgently needed to avoid using pesticides and to raise adaptivity to the environmental stresses caused by global climate change. In this regard, the study is aimed at ex situ conservation of Aegilops L. genus local ecotypes’ genetic diversity, which is very relevant and promising for breeding. In order to establish breeding utility and form an ex situ collection reflecting the intra- and inter-specific diversity, the phenotypic screening of Kazakhstan’s local populations of Aegilops L. genus (Ae. cylindrica, Ae. tauschii, Ae. triuncialis and Ae. crassa) was conducted on the basis of multiple indicators. For the first time molecular-genetic analysis of 50 representatives of Aegilops L. genus from Kazakhstan’s flora was performed. The microsatellite analysis with the use of 11 EST-SSR markers revealed eight of them to be most effective. For each marker, allele frequency and average heterozygosity was calculated. For the most informative markers the presence of 5 and 6 respective allelic variations was found. A bank of genomic DNA was created and kept in ex situ storage (–70 °С, long-term) in the IMBB of the MES of RK.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smitha Kunhiraman Vasumathy ◽  
Manickavelu Alagu

Abstract I. Background: As rice is the staple food for more than half of the world population, enhancing grain yield irrespective of the variable climatic conditions is indispensable. Many of the traditionally cultivated rice landraces are well adapted to severe environmental conditions and have high genetic diversity that could play an important role in crop improvement.II. Methods and Results: The present study disclosed high level of genetic diversity among the unexploited rice landraces cultivated by farmers of Kerala. Twelve polymorphic markers detected a total of seventy- seven alleles with an average of 6.416 alleles per locus. PIC value ranged from 0.459 to 0.809 and to differentiate the rice genotypes, RM 242 was found to be the most appropriate marker with the highest value of 0.809. The current study indicated that the rice landraces were highly diverse with higher values of the effective number of alleles, PIC, and Shannon information index and utilizing these informative SSR markers for future molecular characterization and population genetic studies in rice landraces are advisable. Haplotypes are sets of genomic regions within a chromosome that are inherited together and haplotype-based breeding is a promising strategy for designing next-generation rice varieties. Here, haplotype analysis explored 270 haplotype blocks and 775 haplotypes from all the chromosomes of landraces under study. The number of SNPs in each haplotype block ranged from two to 28. Haplotypes of genes related to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, yield-enhancing, and growth and development in rice landraces were also elucidated in the current study.III. Conclusions: The present investigation revealed genetic diversity of rice landraces and the haplotype analysis will open the way for genome wide association studies, QTL identification, and marker assisted selection in the unexplored rice landraces collected from Kerala.


PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa María Garcia ◽  
Mauricio Parra-Quijano ◽  
Jose María Iriondo

Drought, one of the most important abiotic stress factors limiting biomass, significantly reduces crop productivity. Salinization also affects the productivity of both irrigated and rain-fed wheat crops. Species of genus Aegilops can be considered crop wild relatives (CWR) of wheat and have been widely used as gene sources in wheat breeding, especially in providing resistance to pests and diseases. Five species (Ae. biuncialis, Ae. geniculata, Ae. neglecta, Ae. triuncialis and Ae. ventricosa) are included in the Spanish National Inventory of CWRs. This study aimed to identify ecogeographic gaps in the Spanish Network on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) with potential tolerance to drought and salinity. Data on the Spanish populations of the target species collected and conserved in genebanks of the Spanish Network on PGRFA and data on other population occurrences in Spain were compiled and assessed for their geo-referencing quality. The records with the best geo-referencing quality values were used to identify the ecogeographical variables that might be important for Aegilops distribution in Spain. These variables were then used to produce ecogeographic land characterization maps for each species, allowing us to identify populations from low and non-represented ecogeographical categories in ex situ collections. Predictive characterization strategy was used to identify 45 Aegilops populations in these ecogeographical gaps with potential tolerance to drought and salinity conditions. Further efforts are being made to collect and evaluate these populations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 536-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Bawin ◽  
Bart Panis ◽  
Samuel Vanden Abeele ◽  
Zhiying Li ◽  
Julie Sardos ◽  
...  

AbstractCrop wild relatives (CWRs) play a key role in crop breeding by providing beneficial trait characteristics for improvement of related crops. CWRs are more efficiently used in breeding if the plant material is genetically characterized, but the diversity in CWR genetic resources has often poorly been assessed. Seven seed collections of Musa balbisiana, an important CWR of dessert and cooking bananas, originating from three natural populations, two feral populations and two ex situ field collections were retrieved and their genetic diversity was quantified using 18 microsatellite markers to select core subsets that conserve the maximum genetic diversity. The highest genetic diversity was observed in the seed collections from natural populations of Yunnan, a region that is part of M. balbisiana's centre of origin. The seeds from the ex situ field collections were less genetically diverse, but contained unique variation with regards to the diversity in all seed collections. Seeds from feral populations displayed low genetic diversity. Core subsets that maximized genetic distance incorporated almost no seeds from the ex situ field collections. In contrast, core subsets that maximized allelic richness contained seeds from the ex situ field collections. We recommend the conservation and additional collection of seeds from natural populations, preferentially originating from the species' region of origin, and from multiple individuals in one population. We also suggest that the number of seeds used for ex situ seed bank regeneration must be much higher for the seed collections from natural populations.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Hoban ◽  
Catriona Campbell ◽  
Jessica da Silva ◽  
Robert Ekblom ◽  
W Chris Funk ◽  
...  

AbstractGenetic diversity is critically important for all species-domesticated and wild- to adapt to environmental change, and for ecosystem resilience to extreme events. International agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have committed to conserve and sustainably and equitably use all levels of biodiversity-genes, species and ecosystems-globally. However, assessment and monitoring of genetic diversity are often overlooked, and there are large knowledge and policy gaps regarding genetic diversity conservation. In this study, we present the first quantitative analysis of genetic diversity assessments conducted by Parties to the CBD. We conducted a detailed, systematic analysis of 114 CBD 5th (submitted 2014) and 6th (submitted 2018) National Reports to quantitatively assess actions, progress on targets, values and indicators related to genetic diversity. First, we found that the importance of genetic diversity is recognised by most Parties to the CBD, and that recognition increased over time. However, genetic targets mainly addressed genetic diversity within cultivated plants, farm animals, and crop wild relatives, with little focus on other wild species. Also, actions for conserving genetic diversity primarily concerned ex-situ facilities and policy, rather than monitoring and intervention for maintaining genetic diversity in situ. The most commonly used indicators of genetic diversity status were the number of genetic resources in conservation facilities, number of threatened breeds, and Red List Index, which are not well correlated to genetic erosion in most species -- highlighting that genetic change is poorly monitored by current indicators. Lastly, analyses of genetic data observations, indigenous use and knowledge of genetic diversity, and strategies being developed and implemented to conserve genetic diversity are highly under-reported. We make several recommendations for the post-2020 CBD Biodiversity Framework to improve awareness, assessment, and monitoring, and facilitate consistent and complete reporting of progress of genetic diversity in future National Reports.Article Impact StatementAn analysis of genetic diversity in CBD National Reports neglects non-domesticated species and demonstrates need for sufficient indicators.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Pautasso

The meeting on ‘Genetic Resources in the Face of New Environmental, Economic and Social Challenges’ held in Montpellier (France) from 20–22 September 2011 brought together about 200 participants active in research and management of the genetic diversity of plant, animal, fungal and microbial species. Attendees had the rare opportunity to hear about agronomy, botany, microbiology, mycology, the social sciences and zoology in the same conference. The research teams presented the results of about 50 projects funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity to preserve genetic diversity carried out in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. These projects aimed to better understand and manage genetic resources in a rapidly changing world (e.g. structural changes in the agricultural industry, the need for climate change mitigation and adaptation, the challenge of achieving food security despite the growing world population and changing dietary habits, the opportunities provided by the many new molecular biology tools, the problems caused by widespread scientific budget cuts). The meeting also hosted some roundtables open to all participants which provided a forum to establish a much needed dialogue between policy-makers, managers and researchers.


PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e9897
Author(s):  
Leta Dickinson ◽  
Hilary Noble ◽  
Elliot Gardner ◽  
Aida Shafreena Ahmad Puad ◽  
Wan Nuur Fatiha Wan Zakaria ◽  
...  

Limestone karsts of Southeast Asia can harbor high levels of endemism, but are highly fragmented, increasingly threatened, and their biodiversity is often poorly studied. This is true of the Padawan Limestone Area of Sarawak, Malaysia, home to the endemic Artocarpus annulatus, the closest known wild relative of two important and underutilized fruit tree crops, jackfruit (A. heterophyllus) and cempedak (A. integer). Identifying and conserving crop wild relatives is critical for the conservation of crop genetic diversity and breeding. In 2016 and 2017, five A. annulatus populations were located, and leaf material, locality information, and demographic data were collected. Microsatellite markers were used to assess genetic diversity and structure among populations, and to compare levels of genetic diversity to closely related congeneric species. Results indicate no evidence of inbreeding in A. annulatus, and there is no genetic structure among the five populations. However, diversity measures trended lower in seedlings compared to mature trees, suggesting allelic diversity may be under threat in the youngest generation of plants. Also, genetic diversity is lower in A. annulatus compared to closely related congeners. The present study provides a baseline estimate of A. annulatus genetic diversity that can be used for comparison in future studies and to other species in the unique limestone karst ecosystems. Considerations for in situ and ex situ conservation approaches are discussed.


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