Harnessing Crop Wild Diversity for Climate Change Adaptation

Warming and drought are reducing global crop production with a potential to substantially worsen global malnutrition. As with the green revolution in the last century, plant genetics may offer concrete opportunities to increase yield and crop adaptability. However, the rate at which the threat is happening requires powering new strategies in order to meet the global food demand. This review paper highlights major recent ‘big data’ developments from both empirical and theoretical genomics that may speed up the identification, conservation, and breeding of exotic and elite crop varieties with the potential to feed humans.