A systematic conservation strategy for crop wild relatives in the Czech Republic

Aim: To create a crop wild relative (CWR) conservation strategy for the Czech Republic: the first national CWR conservation strategy for Central and Eastern Europe. Methods: Authors generated a CWR checklist for the Czech Republic and then prioritized taxa, using widely adopted criteria modified with input from local experts, to create a national CWR inventory. For 204 priority CWR species, they collated 206,760 presence records. They carried out spatial analyses to identify patterns in species richness, gaps in existing conservation actions, complementary conservation networks and collecting strategies to increase representativeness of gene bank accessions.Main Conclusions: In the Czech Republic, active in situ conservation of priority CWR should be instigated. For ex situ conservation, strategic and targeted collection of germplasm would markedly increase the value of gene bank collections. Diversity of priority Czech CWR is concentrated in South Moravia, making this a particularly important CWR area for the country and for Europe.