Indicators of Genetic Diversity, Genetic Erosion, and Genetic Vulnerability for Plant Genetic Resources

Abstract

This chapter surveys the conceptual basis of indicators of genetic diversity, genetic erosion, and genetic vulnerability. These are summary measures of genetic diversity in cultivated plants and their wild relatives that guide decisions, monitor progress, and warn of emerging issues of genetic resources for resilient agricultural production. Such indicators measure the genetic diversity currently present in agricultural populations on farm and held in germplasm collections, and aim to detect genetic erosion, or serious loss of diversity in time, and to warn of vulnerability due to adverse deployment of genetic diversity in space. While diversity itself encompasses many concepts, richness diversity—the number of different kinds of individuals regardless of their frequencies—is the most important theme, followed by evenness diversity—how similar the frequencies of the different variants are. Many variables are plausible as indicators of diversity. The more practical are based on number of individuals or area occupied in situ and on the number of accessions and the number of genebanks ex situ. Genetic erosion is measurable as the proportion of richness of genetic diversity no longer existing in current populations, when compared with the crop a decade previously or predicted to be lost in the next decade without remedial action. Genetic vulnerability is inversely related to richness diversity that is present locally, particularly if it is known to possess adaptation to exotic or new mutant pathotypes or insect strains or environments. Census information forms the primary data. For cultivated species, these data are based on the farmer’s unit of diversity management, most often their named varieties, their number, relative frequencies and divergence over various units of spatial and temporal scale. For wild species, the analogous units of diversity are the lowest recognized (e.g. subspecies, morphological types, ecotypes). Census data should be supplemented and validated using more direct assays at the DNA level with molecular techniques in carefully constructed samples.