Format: ORAL

Elena Castillo-Lorenzo1, Elinor Breman1, Pablo Gmez Barreiro1, Juan Viruel2

1 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Wakehurst, Ardingly, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH17 6TN, UK 4 2 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AE, UK

Crop wild relatives (CWRs) hold a wealth of genetic diversity which can be used to improve and help adapt traditional crops to succeed under environmental changes, being of paramount importance for research and conservation. Characterising and understanding the cross-compatibility between CWRs and crops, is essential to direct breeding efforts and to prioritise conservation of CWRs and facilitate their accessibility for future sustainable use. Wild species in the Brassicaceae family host desirable agronomic traits, biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. We reviewed the current classifications of CWRs in the Brassicaceae with the aim of identifying new potential cross-compatible CWRs from a total of 1,242 species using phylogenetic approaches. These approaches were used to fill in gaps of species without genetic sequence data to estimate their evolutionary relationships with Brassicaceae crops. Gaps in ex situ conservation and characterisation of CWRs were reviewed by compiling globally available data. Around 70% of the wild Brassicaceae lacked genetic sequence data available, and chromosome numbers were available for only 40% of them. Generally, compatibility data between wild species and crops, and phenotype and genotype characterisation data were available for major crops and very limited for minor crops. Half of the species had no records of being conserved ex situ and 80% were not assessed for their conservation status. Generate more sequence data for more species is key to understanding the needs of the cultivated species and to identify new CWRs. Using phylogenetic distances, we proposed 103 new potential CWRs, which we recommend as priorities for cross compatibility tests with crops and for physiological and phenotypic characterisation, including 71 newly identified CWRs for 10 minor crops. Confirming the cross-compatibility of the new potential CWRs with the same chromosome number is critical, in addition to generating more DNA sequencing data to complete the genetic characterisation of the family.