Gayle M. Volk, USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation, 1111 S. Mason St., Fort Collins, CO USA 80521 (Gayle.Volk@usda.gov)

Tara L. Moreau, University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, 6804 SW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4 (Tara.Moreau@ubc.ca)

Patrick F. Byrne, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado USA 80523 (Patrick.Byrne@colostate.edu)

Context

The importance of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) cannot be overstated. They are critical for agriculture productivity, environmental resiliency, and food security, both for today and the future. Climate change presents a myriad of challenges for successful conservation of plant genetic resources and long-term plant collections management. 

Ex situ plant collections (genebanks, seed banks, botanic gardens, and public gardens) maintain vast amounts of PGRFA. In the face of biodiversity loss and climate change, ex situ plant collections are critical to prevent extinction and to offer novel forms of plant genetic diversity that can be evaluated, screened, and utilized for breeding programs to develop new varieties. Plants will respond differently to climate change and the benefits of being able to develop new varieties of food crops with unique genetic traits will be increasingly important. Managing plant collections and plant genetic resources in the uncertainty of changing climatic conditions will require site-specific considerations, planning, and action.

Goals

This eBook aims to support current and future plant genetic resource managers as they consider the impacts of climate change on plants, agriculture, agrobiodiversity, and plant collections. Our goal is to provide information for readers to learn, understand, plan, and anticipate climate change extremes and how they might impact plant conservation and ex situ collections. Developing plans and preparing management and decision-making processes for dealing with the effects of climate change aligns with many sustainability practices and brings forward skills and techniques for forecasting and adaptive resource management.

In this eBook, we focus on introducing broad ideas, tools, and tactics to support ex situ plant collection managers in building climate-ready collections. We summarize the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food systems, and present a series of chapters that highlight important considerations of a complex landscape, including:

• Chapter 1 – Understanding how climate changes impacts agriculture and food systems
• Chapter 2 – Identifying the importance of plants in both mitigating and adapting to climate change
• Chapter 3 – Understanding the need and value of ex situ plant collections for providing solutions that address the effects of climate change
• Chapter 4 – Understanding how climate change affects plant interactions with pollinators, pathogens, and pests
• Chapter 5 – Describing methods and opportunities for plant breeding to respond to climate change
• Chapter 6 – Considering climate change impacts on plant collections management
• Chapter 7 – Learning to develop plans that address the vulnerabilities of climate change

This information serves as an overview of a complex subject that includes the impacts of climate change on agricultural productivity and the critical roles that plant collections have in mitigating and adapting to a changing climate. A greater understanding of these key topics will provide critical insights into the planning necessary to ensure that food plant genetic resources are conserved for current and future generations.

about this ebook

The eBook “Conserving and Using Climate-Ready Plant Collections” was developed through a collaboration between the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, Colorado State University, and the United States Department of Agriculture.

This eBook contains chapters that can be accessed in any order. Click on “Contents” in the upper left corner and then expand “Main Body” to access chapter titles; scrolling might be necessary to view all chapter titles. Chapters can also be navigated by using arrows at the bottom of each page. Chapters might have text, images, video, and interactive content on a single page.

Material can be used free of charge, in the online format, for personal use or for trainings and courses for students and/or employees. If you wish to make modifications to the content or download other versions, please contact the authors.

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