SUMMARY Cucurbits (

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Environmental degradation and climate change pose a threat to global food security. Recent decades have brought crop failures, food shortages, reductions in crop productivity, food price increases, and economic crises, highlighting the vulnerability of global food production systems for sustaining an ever-growing human population (Miller et al., 2010). Estimates place 20% of all plant species in danger of extinction in the near future (Brummitt and Bachman, 2010). This number is likely to increase as a result of climate change and expanding urbanization and agricultural production. In addition, the geographic range of many plant species is expected to be reduced by half in the next 50 yr (Jarvis et al., 2008). Geographic range shifts for many species have already been documented at rates two to three times faster than previously thought (Chen et al., 2011).

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