In the face of global pressures of change and biodiversity loss, crop wild relatives (CWR) and wild‐utilized species (WUS) urgently require conservation attention. To advance conservation, we assembled a national inventory of CWR and WUS in Canada. To assess current ex situ conservation of these plant species, we gathered a virtual metacollection of accession data from botanical gardens and national genebanks. The inventory includes 779 CWR and WUS taxa (658 distinct species), with 263 (222 distinct species) that are related to food crops of national and global importance such as blueberry (
Plant collections held by botanic gardens and arboreta are key components of ex situ conservation. Maintaining genetic diversity in such collections allows them to be used as resources for supplementing wild populations. However, most recommended minimum sample sizes for sufficient ex situ genetic diversity are based on microsatellite markers, and it remains unknown whether these sample sizes remain valid in light of more recently developed next‐generation sequencing (NGS) approaches. To address this knowledge gap, we examine how ex situ conservation status and sampling recommendations differ when derived from microsatellites and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in garden and wild samples of two threatened oak species. For
- PAR ID:
- 10496653
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Evolutionary Applications
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1752-4571
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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