Botanic Gardens Are Important Contributors to Crop Wild Relative Preservation

Many crop wild realtives (CWRs) are underrepresented in crop gene banks. With at least one-third of known plant species maintained in botanic garden living collections, the botanic garden community serves as an important global ex situ network that supports plant conservation and research around the world. This paper characterizes botanic garden holdings of CWRs and demonstrates capacity for cross-sector coordination in support of CWR ex situ preservation.