Conservation of crop wild relative diversity in Northeast Africa: Checklist and prioritization

Abstract

Crop wild relatives (CWR) are an important source of genetic diversity useful for crop improvement. This study was conducted to create both a checklist and a priority inventory of CWR in Northeast Africa. A partial CWR regional checklist was obtained by combining the floras of Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan for priority crop genera. It includes 1020 taxa belonging to 39 families and 130 genera, and about 80% of these taxa are native. The families with the highest number of CWR were the Poaceae (334) and Fabaceae (202). The checklist was then prioritized based on the social and economic value of the related crops using the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database and the potential use of CWR for crop improvement using the crop gene pool or taxon group concepts. These criteria were applied to the checklist via a serial method to generate a prioritized inventory of 97 CWR taxa belonging to 19 families and 44 genera. Forty-three percent of these taxa occur in more than two countries and additionally 32% in Eritrea and Ethiopia, 18% in Sudan and South Sudan, and 7% in Somalia. For crop improvement, 20% of the taxa have confirmed uses, 23% have recorded potential uses, and 28% have both confirmed and potential uses. This prioritized list includes important CWR taxa related to regionally important food crops such as sorghum and teff, as well as providing a foundation for further conservation studies by conservationists and breeders in this region and worldwide.