50 years of changing diversity in global food supplies

Newly released infographics show how the so-called “globalized diet” has emerged. It’s the story of massive change over the past 50 years in the foods people eat, of crop winners and losers, and most of all, of increasing similarity in the food supplies of countries worldwide. Here are five graphs that together describe some of the the most important changes in food diversity over the past five decade

Toward integrated conservation of North America's crop wild relatives

North America harbors a rich native flora of crop wild relatives—the progenitors and closely related species of domesticated plants—as well as a range of culturally significant wild utilized plants. Despite their current and potential future value, they are rarely prioritized for conservation efforts; thus many species are threatened in their natural habitats, and most are underrepresented in plant genebanks and botanical gardens. Further coordination of efforts among land management, botanical, and agricultural science organizations will improve conservation and general public awareness with regard to these species. We present examples of productive collaborations focused on wild cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon and Vaccinium oxycoccos) and chile peppers (Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum). We then discuss five shared priorities for further action: (1) understand and document North America's crop wild relatives and wild utilized plants, (2) protect threatened species in their natural habitats, (3) collect and conserve ex situ the diversity of prioritized species, (4) make this diversity accessible and attractive for plant breeding, research, and education, and (5) raise public awareness of their value and the threats to their persistence

Conservation Priorities for Tree Crop Wild Relatives in the United States

Crop wild relatives native to the United States have proved useful as genetic resources in breeding more productive, nutritious, and resilient crops. Their utilization is expected to increase with better information about the species and improving breeding tools. But this utilization may be constrained by their limited representation in genebanks and the ongoing loss of wild populations to habitat modification, invasive species, pollution, over-collecting, and climate change. We report on a series of related initiatives contributing to conservation of crop wild relatives in the United States. An inventory of wild relatives has documented taxa related to a broad range of food, forage and feed, medicinal, ornamental, and industrial crops. Valuable species are threatened in the wild, and few accessions of these taxa are currently conserved ex situ. Potential distribution models based on historical occurrence information are clarifying where the species diversity of wild relatives is likely to be concentrated, and a gap analysis methodology is facilitating efforts to identify those taxa and geographic areas of particular conservation concern. A novel collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service and USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is making progress studying, collecting for genebank conservation, and protecting in situ a number of crop wild relative species. We discuss the value of broadening partnerships between agencies and aligning with ongoing regional and international initiatives to conserve, research, and utilize crop wild relative diversity

Robustness and accuracy of maxent niche modelling for Lactuca species distributions in light of collecting expeditions

Niche modelling software can be used to assess the probability of detecting a population of a plant species at a certain location. In this study, we used the distribution of the wild relatives of lettuce (Lactuca spp.) to investigate the applicability of Maxent species distribution models for collecting missions. Geographic origin data of genebank and herbarium specimens and climatic data of the origin locations were used as input. For Lactuca saligna, we varied the input data by omitting the specimens from different parts of the known distribution area to assess the robustness of the predicted distributions. Furthermore, we examined the accuracy of the modelling by comparing the predicted probabilities of population presence against recent expedition data for the endemic Lactuca georgica and the cosmopolitan Lactuca serriola. We found Maxent to be quite robust in its predictions, although its usefulness was higher for endemic taxa than for more widespread species. The exclusion of occurrence data from the perceived range margins of the species can result in important information about local adaptation to distinct climatic conditions. We discuss the potential for enhanced use of Maxent in germplasm collecting planning.</jats:p

Global Strategy for the Conservation and Use of Capsicum Genetic Resources

This document aims to provide a framework for the efficient and effective conservation of genetic resources of Capsicum crops. The development of this Global Crop Conservation Strategy was funded by the Government of Germany (BMEL) as part of the three-year project led by the Crop Trust: “Breathing new life into the Global Crop Conservation Strategies". The Crop Trust also cooperated with the Secretariat of The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in the development of this document.Supplementary data: Supplementary data for Barchenger D.W. and Khoury C.K. 2022. A Global Strategy for the Conservation and Use of Capsicum Genetic Resources. Global Crop Diversity Trust. Bonn, Germany. DOI: 10.22001/wvc.74702 (https:// worldveg.tind.io/record/74702