Prioritization of the Checklist
Please find below the updated Prioritized Spanish Checklist of Crop Wild Relatives
Please find below the updated Prioritized Spanish Checklist of Crop Wild Relatives
Mauricio Parra-Quijano
The design of a conservation strategy involves the planning and implementation of specific measures that, nowadays, cannot be applied to the 929 species of the Spanish Checklist of CWR.
One of the main objectives of the PRG Secure project is to enhance crop breeding, safeguarding food security in the context of the climate change. Based on this main argument, the four categories established in the checklist have been prioritized independently from each other and treated in two groups. As a result of this, the food and the forage & fodder categories have been prioritized with less restrictive criteria than those applied to the ornamental and industrial categories.
Criteria for the prioritization:
The prioritization has been based on criteria regarding crossability of CWR with crop species, threat and endemicity.
- Crossability regarded as possibility of gene transfer among species and assessed through the Gene pool (GP) concept (Harlan & de Wet, 1971) or the Taxon Group (TG) concept (Maxted et al., 2006). This criterion has been applied to all categories, prioritizing those species from GP 1 and 2 or TG 2 or 3 when no information on interspecific crossed was found.
- Threat. Assessed using the Red List of Vascular Flora of Spain (Moreno, 2008). Only applied to Food and Forage & fodder categories. Species within the categories Critically Endangered (CR), Endagered (EN), Vulnerable (VU) or Near Threatened (NT) were prioritized.
- Endemicity. Endemic species to Spain were prioritized from the Food and Forage & Fodder categories.
One of the main objectives of the PRG Secure project is to enhance crop breeding, safeguarding food security in the context of the climate change. Based on this main argument, the four categories established in the checklist have been prioritized independently from each other and treated in two groups. As a result of this, the food and the forage & fodder categories have been prioritized with less restrictive criteria than those applied to the ornamental and industrial categories.
Criteria for the prioritization:
The prioritization has been based on criteria regarding crossability of CWR with crop species, threat and endemicity.
- Crossability regarded as possibility of gene transfer among species and assessed through the Gene pool (GP) concept (Harlan & de Wet, 1971) or the Taxon Group (TG) concept (Maxted et al., 2006). This criterion has been applied to all categories, prioritizing those species from GP 1 and 2 or TG 2 or 3 when no information on interspecific crossed was found.
- Threat. Assessed using the Red List of Vascular Flora of Spain (Moreno, 2008). Only applied to Food and Forage & fodder categories. Species within the categories Critically Endangered (CR), Endagered (EN), Vulnerable (VU) or Near Threatened (NT) were prioritized.
- Endemicity. Endemic species to Spain were prioritized from the Food and Forage & Fodder categories.
Narcissus sp.
Photo: Juan Luis Hidalgo
The application of the criteria proposed for the prioritization of the Spanish Checklist of CWRs significantly reduced the list.
The prioritized checklist contains 578 species: 138 species related to food crops, 185 species related to Forage & Fodder crops, 161 species related to Ornamental crops and 95 species related to Industrial & Other uses crops.
Around 82% of the prioritized species were classified as close relatives of the crops, approximately 27% classified as threatened species (including Near Threatened) according to the IUCN threat categories and about 40% considered as endemic to Spain.
Explicit details and further information can be found in the Proposal for the Spanish CWR conservation, available in this same website.
The prioritized checklist contains 578 species: 138 species related to food crops, 185 species related to Forage & Fodder crops, 161 species related to Ornamental crops and 95 species related to Industrial & Other uses crops.
Around 82% of the prioritized species were classified as close relatives of the crops, approximately 27% classified as threatened species (including Near Threatened) according to the IUCN threat categories and about 40% considered as endemic to Spain.
Explicit details and further information can be found in the Proposal for the Spanish CWR conservation, available in this same website.