Category: Wild relatives

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Mediterranean hotspots get Nagoya love

It must be the spirit of Nagoya, because following the announcement of publication of a list of threatened plant species from IUCN and Kew, there’s news of a major conservation effort, this one focusing on the Mediterranean.

The areas targeted look to me like they might well have quite a few crop wild relatives. 1

• Southwest Balkans
• Mountains, Plateaus and Wetlands of Algerian Tell and Tunisia
• Atlas Mountains
• Taurus Mountains
• Cyrenaican Peninsula and
• Orontes Valley and Lebanon Mountains 2

There’s more information on the project, including an ” ecosystem profile” and a call for proposals, on the website of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.

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Plants in peril

Kew and IUCN made a splash today with the Sampled Red List Index for Plants. A representative sample of 7,000 species of plants was selected from the comprehensive IUCN Red List Index for detailed monitoring. 3 You can contribute to the Sampled Red List in a wiki-like environment, and follow its progress on the inevitable blog. An interactive map allows some basic exploration of the data. The headline number is that 25% of plant species are threatened. There are various crop wild relatives among the 7,000 species, 4 so it might be possible to calculate some statistics for that particular category, to complement other efforts.

Photo courtesy of Kew (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kewonflickr/5036067604/)

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Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Baobab hybridization, Jackfruit, Vavilovia, Cowpea education, Lead, Bees, Banana wilt, Dariy cows, Pavlovsk, Drylands, School gardens, Genetic diversity in botanic gardens

  • The value of Pavlovsk. Jeremy delivers a slap.
  • CIRAD on kinky sex among the baobabs.
  • “I had never heard that there were distinct varieties of the jackfruit, although of course such a thing was reasonable, so I naturally wanted very much to taste one.” Naturally.
  • Wild relative of pea gets a weird hybrid in-ex situ conservation treatment.
  • A Cowpea Story, an illustrative children’s book by Vicky Inniss-Palmer, tells the hopeful story of a cowpea named Catalina and her struggle to overcome illness and disease with the help of scientists. Meanwhile, scientists meet.
  • Urban gardeners, beware lead. And nurture your pollinators.
  • Reading this, anyone would think nobody had ever researched banana Xanthomonas wilt.
  • Improved dairying in Kenya.
  • Vavilov Institute’s comprehensive update on Pavlovsk.
  • ICRISAT to put in place new market-oriented strategy which will use a “systems perspective in setting our priorities to ensure that all important issues along the dryland agriculture value chain are addressed.”
  • Meanwhile, ASARECA asks for ideas on how to intensify one of those dryland systems in the face of climate change.
  • ICIMOD promotes herbal gardens in schools.
  • Botanic gardens get wrists slapped over their inattention to genetics.