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.

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.

A multi-taxon analysis of European Red Lists reveals major threats to biodiversity.

Biodiversity loss is a major global challenge and minimizing extinction rates is the goal of several multilateral environmental agreements. Policy decisions require comprehensive, spatially explicit information on species' distributions and threats. We present an analysis of the conservation status of 14,669 European terrestrial, freshwater and marine species (ca.

Community-Level Incentive Mechanisms for the Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives: A Malawi Case Study.

Despite being an increasingly important source of genes for crop breeding aimed at improving food security and climate change adaptation, crop wild relatives (CWRs) are globally threatened. A root cause of CWR conservation challenges is a lack of institutions and payment mechanisms by which the beneficiaries of CWR conservation services (such as breeders) could compensate those who can supply them. Given that CWR conservation generates important public good values, for the significant proportion of CWRs found outside of protected areas, there is a strong justification for the design of incentive mechanisms to support landowners whose management practices positively contribute to CWR conservation.

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.

DNA Barcoding Medicinal Plant Species from Indonesia.

Over the past decade, plant DNA barcoding has emerged as a scientific breakthrough and is often used to help with species identification or as a taxonomical tool. DNA barcoding is very important in medicinal plant use, not only for identification purposes but also for the authentication of medicinal products. Here, a total of 61 Indonesian medicinal plant species from 30 families and a pair of ITS2, , , and primers were used for a DNA barcoding study consisting of molecular and sequence analyses.

Climate change and national crop wild relative conservation planning.

Climate change is likely to be one of the most important factors affecting our future food security. To mitigate negative impacts, we will require our crops to be more genetically diverse. Such diversity is available in crop wild relatives (CWRs), the wild taxa relatively closely related to crops and from which diverse traits can be transferred to the crop.