Adapting to Climate Change:

The importance ofconservation of

crop diversity

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/31/ipcc-report-six-graphs-that-show-how-were-changing-the-worlds-climate

The Guardian’s 6 graphson Climate Change

Source: Battisti, D.S., and R.L. Naylor. 2009. Historical warnings of future

food insecurity with unprecedented seasonal heat. Science, 323, 240-244.

Luigi’s 6 graphs(+1 map) on CC and food

Summary of estimated impacts of observed climate changes on yields over 1960–2013 for 4 major crops in temperate and tropical regions.

Source: Page 7 - IPCC. 2014. “Summary for policymakers - Climate

Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and

Sectoral Aspects.” Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth

Assessment Report of the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC). Available at: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-

report/ar5/wg2/ar5_wgII_spm_en.pdf.

Summary of projected changes in crop yields due to climate change.

Source: Page 18 - IPCC. 2014. “Summary for policymakers - Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and

Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects.” Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment

Report of the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Available at:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/ar5_wgII_spm_en.pdf.

Lobell et al., 2008. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5863/607

Meeting the Global Food Demand of the Future by Engineering Crop Photosynthesis and Yield Potential

Long, Marshall-Colon, Xin-Guang Zhu (2016)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.03.019

Rippke U, Ramirez-Villegas J, Jarvis A, Vermeulen SJ, Parker L, Mer F, Diekkrüger B, Challinor AJ and Howden M. 2016. Timescales of transformational climate change adaptation in sub-

Saharan African agriculture. Nature Climate Change.http://agro.biodiver.se/2016/03/transforming-agriculture-in-africa/

Farmers in 60% of the current African bean area, and about 30% of that of the other crops, will need to think about some other crop at some time during the 21st century.

What to do?

No silver bullet!But don’t panic.

Lots of things that we can do...

technological innovations to

generate weather dataForecasting From satellite to cell

phone

Risk insurance Rapid payments so assets are protected

Productive social safety nets

Build assets, protect from extremes

That cope with extremes

Technologies and practices

Clim

ate

Smar

t Agr

icul

ture

technological innovations to

generate weather data

Clim

ate

Smar

t Agr

icul

tureCreating diversity

of land uses

Changing and diversifying diets

Crop diversification and “climate-smart” species and cultivars

On-farm biodiversity,agroforestry, intercropping

That cope with extremes

Technologies and practices

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/344712/icode/

Actually better to make sure agriculture as a whole is part of

climate change adaptation!

New varieties in farmers’ fields

Breeding

Crop diversity

Seed systems

Genebanks

Increased yields, resilience etc.

Adaptation to climate changeFood and nutritional security

Indicative activities• Prioritize species, varieties, breeds and populations

(including useful wild relatives) for conservation on the basis of climate change expectations...

• Collect information on distribution and frequency of priority species, crop varieties, animal breeds and forestry and fish populations...

• Develop and implement crop, animal, tree or fish species improvement programmes to provide materials adapted to climate...

• Provide long-term support for evaluation and use of wild relatives.

• Improve GRFA information systems and access to them.

Crop Wild Relatives

Svalbard, Norway 78° North, 15°East

a) rice (Oryza sativa); b) Oryza longistaminata—drought tolerance; c) Oryza coarctata—tolerance to salinity

d) barley (Hordeum vulgare); e) Hordeum spontaneum—drought tolerance) f) Hordeum bulbosum—disease resistance, drought, salt, and frost tolerance

g) chickpea (Cicer arietinum); h) Cicer reticulatum—drought and heat tolerance; i) Cicer echinospermum—drought and heat tolerance

j) sunflower (Helianthus annuus); k) Helianthus paradoxus—tolerance to salinity; l) Helianthus argophyllus—tolerance to drought

Pool Potential ConfirmedPrimary 314 268

Secondary 690 531Tertiary 702 391

1B 18 12 31 43 26 54 27 5

Not in pool 165 204"Crop Taxa" (Crop itself) 44 22

Primary

Secondary

Tertiary 1B 2 3 4

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400ConfirmedPotential

Class Potential Confirmed TotalAbiotic Stress 497 108 605

Agronomic Trait 52 332 384Biotic Stress 1331 656 1987Fertility Trait 11 214 225

Morphological Trait 7 12 19Phenological Trait 12 38 50

Quality Trait 107 72 179

Abiotic Stre

ss

Agronomic T

rait

Biotic Stre

ss

Fertility

Trait

Morphological

Trait

Phenologic

al Trai

t

Quality

Trait

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

Confirmed

Potential

Pool Potential ConfirmedAbiotic Stress

Agronomic Trait

Biotic Stress Fertility Trait

Morphological Trait

Phenological Trait

Quality Trait

Primary 314 268 108 83 302 31 7 13 38Secondary 690 531 264 122 698 62 5 13 57

Tertiary 702 391 164 69 692 95 5 16 531B 18 1 0 1 14 0 0 0 42 31 4 1 5 27 0 0 1 13 26 5 11 1 12 4 0 1 24 27 5 8 1 19 3 0 0 1

Primary

Secondary

Tertiary 1B 2 3 4

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Quality TraitPhenological TraitMorphological TraitFertility TraitBiotic StressAgronomic TraitAbiotic Stress

Primary Abiotic Stress

Agronomic Trait

Biotic Stress

Fertility Trait

Morphological Trait

Phenological Trait

Quality Trait

Secondary Abiotic StressAgronomic TraitBiotic StressFertility TraitMorphological TraitPhenological TraitQuality Trait

Tertiary Abiotic Stress

Agronomic Trait

Biotic Stress

Fertility Trait

Morphological Trait

Phenological Trait

Quality Trait

Alfalfa

Apple Rice

Bambara

Groundnut

Banan

aBarl

ey

Common BeanCarr

ot

Chickpea

Cowpea

Eggplan

t/Auberg

ine

Faba B

ean

Finge

r Mille

t

Grass p

ea/Common ch

icklin

gLen

tilOat

Garden

pea

Pearl M

illet

Pigeonpea

Potato

Rye

Sorgh

um

Sunflower

Sweet

Potato

Common vetch

Wheat0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Quality TraitPhenological TraitMorphological TraitFertility TraitBiotic StressAgronomic TraitAbiotic Stress

Alfalfa

Apple Rice

Bambara

Groundnut

Banan

aBarl

ey

Common BeanCarr

ot

Chickpea

Cowpea

Eggplan

t/Auberg

ine

Faba B

ean

Finge

r Mille

t

Grass p

ea/Common ch

icklin

gLen

tilOat

Garden

pea

Pearl M

illet

Pigeonpea

Potato Rye

Sorgh

um

Sunflower

Sweet

Potato

Common vetch

Wheat0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

ConfirmedPotential

Nora Castaneda, pers. comm.

CIAT

CWR in genebanks: How much is enough?

How much is enough?

Density of records Density of seed collections

Areas where gaps exist in ex situ collections for multiple taxa

Determine gaps in collections

Model distributions

Gather taxonomic data

Gather occurrence

data

Make collecting recommendations

Georeferencing

TaxonomicGeographicEcological

How much is enough?

Definition of crops and crop wild relative taxa to analyze:– 81 crop genepools globally important for food security.– 1079 crop wild relative taxa (GP1 and GP2 + less closely

related taxa with proven and potential uses in breeding)

Vincent, H. et al. Biological Conservation. 167, 265-275 (2013)

Gathering and curating occurrence data from 420 data sources– Data quality check

Modelling the distribution of CWR– MaxEnt: modelling algorithm

• 19 climatic variables– 5 x 5km resolution– Native range of each taxa

Measuring 3 gap analysis metrics– Sampling Representativeness Score– Geographic Representativeness

Score– Ecological Representativeness Score

Identifying collecting and conservation priorities

Picture credit: https://scienceasaverb.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/introduction-to-ecological-niche-modeling-environmental-niche-modeling-species-distribution-modeling-part-two-what-is-niche-modeling/

http://www.cwrdiversity.org/

Collecting hotspotsGlobal collecting hotspots for High Priority Taxa, for 76 crop gene pools

Priorities for conservation

High priority

taxa

for c

ollecti

on

Mid priority

taxa

for c

ollecti

on

Low prio

rity ta

xa fo

r colle

ction

No furth

er colle

ction is

required

0100200300400500600700800900

No.

of C

WR

taxa

71%

Broom milletFinger milletQuinoaRiceMaize

Foxtail milletOat

BarleyFoxtail milletRyeWheat

Finger milletPearl milletRiceSorghum

Foxtail milletPearl milletRiceSorghum

Collecting and using CWRAdapting Agriculture to Climate Change

• Support from Norwegian Government• $50 million, 10 years• 29 crop genepools (Annex 1)• Started in Jan 2011• Partnership with Millennium Seed Bank, Kew• 20-25 national programs• Capacity building

CWR in situ 1 Research 2 Collecting 3 Conservation

4 Pre-breeding

New varieties

http://www.cwrdiversity.org/

Crop Wild RelativesConservation

Pre-breeding eggplant

http://eggplantprebreeding.upv.es/index.html

Leaf area in some wild species and hybrids is less affected by drought conditions than in domesticated types.

0,00

20,00

40,00

60,00

80,00

100,00

120,00

140,00

Mel Ang Mel x Ang Das Mel x Das Ins Mel x Ins Lin Mel x Lic

Leaf

are

a (c

m2)

Genotypes

Estimated leaf area

Control

Drought

PEG 7%* * **

*

https://www.genesys-pgr.org

Benefit Sharing Fund

• 1st call (2009): 5 projects $500K• 2nd call (2011): 19 projects $5.5M• 3rd call (2014): $10M

ITPGRFA & Climate Change

http://www.planttreaty.org/content/where-are-we-working

Thank you

Collecting and using CWRAdapting Agriculture to Climate Change

Luigi Guarino luigi.guarino@croptrust.org Crop Trust https://www.croptrust.org/

CWR Project http://www.cwrdiversity.org/ Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog http://agro.biodiver.se/

Twitter https://twitter.com/AgroBioDiverse