"Wild plants related to our main agricultural crops are important to future food security. But more than half are endangered, a new study finds."
"For 10,000 years we’ve relied on domesticated plants for our staple foods. But it’s the wild relatives of those crops that are becoming increasingly important to our future food supply.
Over hundreds of thousands of years, these wild foods have adapted to pests, diseases, extreme climates and other inhospitable conditions. That makes their genes particularly important for plant breeding, especially when we’re looking for foods that can withstand a changing climate. Some varieties are still key food and cultural resources today, too.
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers have taken stock of these wild foods and the conservation threats they face. They inventoried and modeled the distribution of 600 native wild taxa in the United States, including the relatives of barley, beans, grapes, hops, plums, potatoes and other foods."
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