A Critical Review of the Current Global Ex Situ Conservation System for Plant Agrobiodiversity. I. History of the Development of the Global System in the Context of the Political/Legal Framework and Its Major Conservation Components

Abstract

The history of ex situ conservation is relatively short, not more than a century old. During the middle of last century, triggered by the realization that genetic erosion was threatening the existing landraces and wild relatives of the major food crops, global efforts to collect and conserve the genetic diversity of these threatened resources were initiated, predominantly orchestrated by FAO. National and international genebanks were established to store and maintain germplasm materials, conservation methodologies were created, standards developed, and coordinating efforts were put in place to ensure effective and efficient approaches and collaboration. In the spontaneously developing global conservation system, plant breeders played an important role, aiming at the availability of genetic diversity in their breeding work. Furthermore, long-term conservation and the safety of the collected materials were the other two overriding criteria that led to the emerging international network of ex situ base collections. The political framework for the conservation of plant genetic resources finds its roots in the International Undertaking of the FAO and became ‘turbulent rapid’ with the conclusion of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This paper reviews the history of the global ex situ conservation system with a focus on the international network of base collections. It assesses the major ex situ conservation approaches and methods with their strengths and weaknesses with respect to the global conservation system and highlights the importance of combining in situ and ex situ conservation.

A Critical Review of the Current Global Ex Situ Conservation System for Plant Agrobiodiversity. II. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Current System and Recommendations for Its Improvement

“…The multilateral system (MLS) established under the ITPGRFA governs the access to the genetic resources of a pool of 64 food and forage crops (referred to as Annex 1 crops to the treaty) under a standard material transfer agreement (SMTA) and the benefit-sharing arising from their use [ 5 ]. Many European gene banks also adopted the use of the SMTA for non-Annex 1 crops (for further details on the ITPGRFA, please refer to the work of [ 3 ]). Apart from the SMTA, other material transfer agreements (MTAs) are also in use.…”

“…Non-seed collections. In ex situ conservation, other collection types have been created to maintain specific forms of plants, e.g., field gene bank collections in which accessions are being maintained of entire plants for practical reasons such as the need to maintain the genetic constitution of a vegetatively propagated crop (e.g., potato and many other root and tuber crops), or that the seeds are recalcitrant and cannot be dried without killing the seeds (e.g., avocado, cacao, many other especially tropical crops or species); when tissue cultures of plants are maintained in specially equipped rooms the term in vitro collection is used; in case such materials have been cryopreserved by placing them in liquid nitrogen the term cryo-collection is used [ 3 ].…”

“…Having described the global long-term conservation and exchange/use system above, in this section, we will take a closer look at the existing policy framework in which the global system is embedded (for a detailed description of the policy framework, please see the previous paper [ 3 ]). We provide an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses as well as of possible limitations of this framework that exist from the perspective of national, regional, and global gene banks regarding their ability to participate in the regional/global system.…”

“…The latter was adopted in 1983 and entirely devoted to the conservation and facilitation of use [ 181 ]. More details on this global system are provided in Engels and Ebert [ 3 ]. This global system is largely based on the national PGRFA programs around the world, the botanic gardens maintaining PGRFA, the gene banks of the regional and international research centers of the CGIAR and AIRCA (Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture, among which the World Vegetable Center and ICBA [International Center for Biosaline Agriculture] maintain considerable germplasm resources), the regional PGRFA networks, the global crop networks and other loosely related institutions that are concerned with the conservation and research of biodiversity.…”

“…These efforts were made to meet the growing demand of plant breeders for broad genetic diversity, essential for the development of well-adapted, high-yielding varieties with resistance to biotic threats and tolerance to abiotic stresses. The history and the major players in the development of global long-term conservation practices and the evolving global (ex situ) conservation system have been described in a previous paper [ 3 ].…”