Article

The Euro-Mediterranean region is an important centre for the diversity of crop wild relatives – species closely related to crops that can provide useful traits for crop improvement. The European Community funded project, PGR Forum (www.pgrforum.org) created a web-based Crop Wild Relative Information System (CWRIS) to provide access to crop wild relative data to a broad user community, including plant breeders, protected area managers, policy-makers, conservationists, taxonomists and the wider public. The system includes data on uses, geographical distribution, biology, population and habitat information, threats (including IUCN Red List assessments) and conservation actions. This information is vital for the continued sustainable utilization and conservation of crop wild relatives. Accessible via the CWRIS is a catalogue of CWR derived from two major databases: Euro+Med PlantBase and Mansfeld’s World Database of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops; with the addition of data sources for forestry, ornamental, medicinal and aromatic groups. Results show that approximately 80% of the EuroMediterranean flora consists of crop wild relatives and other utilized species, as well as the crops themselves; in other words, at least three-quarters of the plant species in the region have a current or potential direct use to humankind. This paper presents a summary of the methodology used to create a Euro-Mediterranean catalogue of CWR, and some preliminary results from analysis of the data.