Botanic Gardens Are Important Contributors to Crop Wild Relative Preservation

Humans rely on crop wild relatives (CWRs) for sustainable agriculture and food security through augmentation of crop yield, disease resistance, and climatic tolerance, among other important traits. Many CWRs are underrepresented in crop gene banks. With at least one-third of known plant species maintained in botanic garden living collections, the botanic garden community serves as an important global ex situ network that supports plant conservation and research around the world. This study sought to characterize botanic garden holdings of CWRs and demonstrate capacity for cross-sector coordination in support of CWR ex situ preservation. Findings demonstrate that botanic gardens have the capacity to fill critical CWRs gaps in crop gene bank collections, and botanic gardens maintain samples from wild populations not represented in crop gene banks. The authors call on the crop gene bank and botanic garden communities to use an integrated collections development approach for further coordination, complementarity, and duplication of ex situ CWR plant genetic resources.