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A global strategy for conserving banana |
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The International Musa Germplasm Collection at the ITC in Belgium brings an assurance that a large part of the banana gene pool is conserved and made available in perpetuity, but it cannot function in isolation. Test tubes of thousands of plantlets can be maintained indefinitely within the confines of a small room in Belgium, but this type of genebank depends on field collections in the appropriate tropical climates to grow out the accessions in order to characterize them and confirm their trueness-to-type. Further partners are called on to check the accessions for their health status, and a large community of researchers contribute evaluation and characterization data, which are pooled and made available as a database or catalogue so that users may select germplasm responding to their needs or interest.
Bioversity is striving to strengthen this informal network of partners and ensure conservation efforts are sustainable and cost-effective. Through the instigation of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Bioversity has developed a Global Conservation Strategy for Musa, which proposes a model for a global system to rationalize conservation efforts and improve the exchange, dissemination and use of Musa genetic diversity.
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Interactions between national and international collections in the Global Musa Conservation Strategy |
Most banana-producing countries maintain some kind of Musa collection. Sadly, the majority of these collections are under-funded or struggling under adverse conditions, and several have lost accessions or even their entire collection at one or more points in their history. The basis of the Conservation Strategy lies in the long-term financing of a small number of priority collections, which will share conservation and research responsibilities and help support a regional framework for improving germplasm exchange, developing collaborative linkages and applying best practices within producer regions.
At the same time, we have established a global community of taxonomic experts, the Taxonomic Advisory Group - TAG, who are leading an effort to improve the identification, characterization and documentation of the main banana cultivar groups. With comprehensive information on the characteristics of accessions and their potential use or value, collections will be in a better situation to rationalize their holdings (i.e. remove duplicates or cultivars that are possibly better conserved elsewhere) and promote the use of a wider range of cultivars.
While the conservation strategy focuses on ensuring the sustainability of collections, the greatest part of genetic diversity in the genus Musa lies in its wild species, the majority of which are not kept safe in germplasm collections. The TAG has identified the collection and conservation of wild species as one of the primary conservation priorities. Bioversity is currently mapping and gathering data on wild species and threatened cultivars, and we are working with TAG members to raise funds for this urgent task.
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What we do 