Systematic conservation planning of wild relatives of food crops in Indonesia

Rahman, Wiguna ORCID: 0000-0003-2482-0698 (2021). Systematic conservation planning of wild relatives of food crops in Indonesia. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

Preview

Rahman2021PhD_Redacted.pdf
Text - Accepted Version
Available under License All rights reserved.
Download (17MB) | Preview

Abstract

The increasing demand for food by the global population and the uncertainty of global environmental changes in the future require our attention to anticipate for the worst scenario, the global collapse of the living systems on Earth. Crops, as the main source of human food, should be maintained to increase their yields and resiliency to sustain the future of food security when most of the production system components become more limited and degraded. Therefore, crop improvement is a crucial step to boost their production capacity. For this, a wide range of genetic diversity is required to develop new varieties since genetic drift/bottleneck syndromes tend to lower the crop resilience capacity. One of a promising and increasingly used source as the plant genetic resources for crop improvement is Crop Wild Relatives (CWR).
CWR as wild species are threatened by anthropogenic disturbances. Conservation of these resources is a key to preserve their existence and prolong their availability for crop improvement. Then, systematics conservation planning is required for efficiency and effectiveness of the allocation of conservation resources and to mainstream in the development sectors. Since food security and environmental protection are national responsibilities, conservation planning of CWR at the national level will support the country’s achievement for the global agendas. Indonesia, as a country with serious problems with biodiversity degradation and food insecurity, not yet have systematic conservation planning for its CWR. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap.
Systematic conservation planning of CWR for food crops in Indonesia was developed by several steps such as setting the priorities of CWR, conservation gap analysis in current in situ and ex situ conservation, climate change impact analysis, and novel threat assessment. About 1,968 taxa were identified as CWR of food crops. 234 of them were selected as national priorities. 66% of the priority CWR have no recorded ex situ collections. 28% have no presence records within the existing protected area network although 60 of them are predicted to exist in the existing protected area based on their predicted distribution model. At least, 40 complementary protected areas are required to conserve those CWR with records within the existing protected area. These 40 complementary areas are suggested as the initial areas for CWR genetic reserves network in Indonesia. The climate change impact analysis found that one to six of priority CWR, depend on the scenario, are predicted to have a significant negative impact in terms of their distribution range contraction. The existing protected areas that serve as climatic refugia and those containing holdouts population were identified for their in situ and ex situ conservation action targets. About 127 of priority CWR have novel threat assessments. 40 taxa are threatened, 32 are Near Threatened, 31 taxa are Least Concern, and 24 taxa are Data Deficient. 62% of threatened CWR inhabit the Sundaland area, one of the global biodiversity hotspots.
The result of this study is a starting point for more discussion and comprehensive conservation planning of CWR that included more stakeholders. Feedbacks from all the related stakeholders will improve the conservation planning. The establishment of this conservation planning and its implementation will provide a path for effective long term conservation of CWR in Indonesia.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):