The wild relatives of major vegetables, needed for climate resilience, are in danger

by CIAT Comunicaciones | Jan 23, 2020

The wild relatives of chile peppers, pumpkins, carrots, and lettuce join a growing list of poorly conserved plant species. These ancient plants have genes that may help our food withstand the harsh climate of our future. If they don’t go extinct first

Growing up in the wild makes plants tough. Wild plants evolve to survive the whims of nature and thrive in difficult conditions, including extreme climate conditions, poor soils, and pests and diseases. Their better-known descendants – the domesticated plants that are critical to a healthy diet – are often not nearly as hardy. The genes that make crop wild relatives robust have the potential to make their cultivated cousins – our food plants – better prepared for a harsh climate future. But a series of new research papers show these critical plants are imperiled.

“The wild relatives of crops are one of the key tools used to breed crops adapted to hotter, colder, drier, wetter, saltier and other difficult conditions,” said Colin Khoury, a scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, (CIAT). “But they are impacted by habitat destruction, over-harvesting, climate change, pollution, invasive species, and more. Some of them are sure to disappear from their natural habitats without urgent action.”

Khoury and colleagues’latest focus has been on the wild relatives of vegetables, including chile peppers, lettuce, and carrots. Their most recent publication was on the distribution, conservation status, and stress tolerance of wild cucurbits, or the gourd family, which includes zucchini, pumpkins, and squash. The findings were published online Dec. 10 in Plants, People, Planet.

Even with protection in the wild, the researchers found that many crop wild relatives require urgent safeguarding in genebanks to assure long-term survival. They determined that more than 65 percent of wild pumpkins and more than 95 percent of wild chile peppers are not in any genebank.

Genebanks are repositories for seeds and other plant materials that assure continued propagation of new plants and allow scientists to study their often complex genetic traits.

The studies include the first highly detailed maps of the distributions of the wild relatives of these crops. Mapping their ranges, and especially areas with a great density, endemism, and diversity, can help policymakers and conservationists prioritize areas in need of protection. The findings will help crop breeders more efficiently find wild relatives with traits needed for crop development. The results will be used to guide rescue missions aimed at collecting vulnerable species before they disappear.

“If they disappear, they are gone,” said Khoury. “Extinction is forever, which is a loss not only in terms of their evolution and persistence on the planet, but also a loss to the future of our food.”

“Our main finding is that more conservation work needs to be done to ensure that these wild species are well represented in genebanks, and are also adequately protected in their natural habitats,” said Khoury, who is also a researcher at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Saint Louis University. “We were able to produce maps that can help indicate to plant collectors and to land managers where the most significant gaps are in terms of current conservation, including where you might go to find and protect many species in hotspots of diversity.”

See https://blog.ciat.cgiar.org/the-wild-relatives-of-major-vegetables-needed-for-climate-resilience-are-in-danger/