Gea Galluzzi

Rete Semi Rurali, Italy

The role of plant breeding in adapting crops to climate changes that affect food production in developing countries is recognized as extremely important and urgent, alongside other agronomic, socio-economic and policy adaptation pathways. To enhance plant breeders’ capacity to respond to climate challenges, it is acknowledged that they need to be a...

The role of biodiversity in plant breeding needs to be reconsidered to cope with the complexity, location specificity and combined challenges of climate change, human population increase, human health and food security, safety and sovereignty. From a biological viewpoint, heterogeneous plant populations derived from evolutionary plant breeding may...

This article analyses 25 years of data about international movements of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), facilitated by the gene banks hosted by seven centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. It identifies trends in the movements of PGRFA for use in research and development, and describes th...

Itzamna website is now available at http://itzamna-mesoamerica.info/

Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes Kunth) has had a central place in the livelihoods of people in the Americas since pre-Columbian times, notably for its edible fruits and multi-purpose wood. The botanical taxon includes both domesticated and wild varieties. Domesticated var gasipaes is believed to derive from one or more of the three wild types of var....

Distribution of variation in phenotypic traits measured for each collection separately. (TIF)

Suitability modeling. Models considered and calibration methods. (DOCX)

Distribution of individual phenotypic traits measured for each collection separately (continued). (TIF)

Summary of population genetic parameters. Allele number, average allele frequency, observed and expected heterozygosity, and the fixation index Fis were measured on Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes accessions from CATIE, INIA and those collected on-farm in Colombia. (DOCX)

Distribution of individual phenotypic traits measured for each collection separately. (TIF)

Genetic data collection. (DOCX)

Phenotypic data. (DOCX)

Plant material from the three sources (CATIE, INIA and Colombian on farm collection). (DOCX)

List of primer sequences for the microsatellite loci analysed, the expected product and the number of alleles. (DOCX)

Results of correlation tests between different sample sizes (numbers of trees per cell) for allelic richness and locally common alleles measured on the dataset of Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes. (DOCX)

Neglected and underutilized species (NUS) are referred to as species with under-exploited potentials with regard to food and nutrition security, health, income generation and environmental services. In the past, most breeding activities have concentrated on major crops, leading to overdependence on a few plant species of worldwide economic importan...

doi:10.3390/resources3040636 resources ISSN 2079-9276 www.mdpi.com/journal/resources Article Abstract: Although community-level seed-saving initiatives have existed in many countries around the world for about 30 years, they have rarely been the subject of systematic scientific enquiry. Based on a combination of a literature review and field resear...

Latin America is home to dramatically diverse agroecological regions which harbor a high concentration of underutilized plant species, whose genetic resources hold the potential to address challenges such as sustainable agricultural development, food security and sovereignty, and climate change. This paper examines the status of an expert-informed...

Underutilized crops tend to harbor high levels of genetic diversity, be maintained on-farm in small-scale farming systems and be relatively neglected by formal research and development strategies, including breeding programs. While high genetic variability allows these crops to adapt to marginal environments, inappropriate management practices and...

R.V.) 2 Bioversity International, Regional Office for the Americas, c/o CIAT, Abstract: There is growing recognition that sustainable intensification of agricultural production systems and their successful adaptation to changes in climate will depend upon the improved access to, and use of, genetic diversity. This paper analyzes how the collection,...

El Plan de Acción Estratégico para Fortalecer la Conservación y el Uso de los Recursos Fitogenéticos Mesoamericanos para la Adaptación de la Agricultura al Cambio Climático (PAEM) es un mapa de ruta a diez años para fortalecer la conservación, el acceso y el uso de los recursos fitogenéticos de Mesoamérica como elemento estratégico para la seguridad...

The Strategic Action Plan to Strengthen the Conservation and Use of Mesoamerican Plant Genetic Resources in Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change (SAPM) is a ten-year road map to strengthen conservation, access and use of plant genetic resources in Mesoamerica, as a strategic element for food security and agricultural adaptation to climate change...

Itzamná es una herramienta que permite al usuario consultar el estado de conservación de más de 400 recursos fitogenéticos cultivados y silvestres de Mesoamérica. Esta herramienta fue producida y financiada dentro del marco de un proyecto que planteaba la elaboración de un Plan de Acción Estratégico para Fortalecer la Conservación y el Uso de los R...

Cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) is indigenous to the Amazon basin, but is generally believed to have been domesticated in Mesoamerica for the production of chocolate beverage. However, cacao's distribution of genetic diversity in South America is also likely to reflect pre-Columbian human influences that were superimposed on natural processes of genetic...

The world´s food basket is today shrinking at an alarming rate and most concerning is the reduction in the number of species and varieties used by humankind for food and nutrition, which raises serious concerns about the sustainability of feeding the world today and in the future. Yet, whereas we deploy consistent efforts in monitoring the status o...

Over the last two decades, the importance of conserving genetic resources has received increasing attention. In this context the role of home gardens as repositories of biological diversity has been acknowledged but still a comprehensive, interdisciplinary investigation of their agro-biodiversity is lacking. Home gardens, whether found in rural or...

Backyard or home gardens characterized by structural complexity and multifunctionality, have been recognized as potential repositories of biological diversity. Whether in the countryside or in town, such gardens represent distinct microenvironments within a larger landscape, in which they are well integrated. It has been found that gardens provide...

Given the greater vulnerability of developing countries to climate change, their paramount interest is to establish effective mitigation policies including the land use and forestry sectors as part of the post-2012 Climate Agreement. In this context, an accounting system for land use, land use change and forestry acceptable to non-Annex I Parties c...

Real-time PCR assay, based on SYBRGreen I dye and LightCycler (Roche) fluorimeter, was used to detect WIS2-1A transposon copy number in diploids (Triticum monococcum, and T. urartu, traditionally indicated as AA), tetraploid (T. dicoccum, AABB) and hexaploid (T. spelta, AABBDD). WIS2-1A was the first retrotransposon to be found in wheat, as an inse...