This spreadsheet is the underlying data for the biodiversity indicator C9b, Plant genetic resources - Enrichment Index.
The UK is relatively rich in wild relatives of crops, landraces of cereal, vegetable and fruit crops, and traditional orchard trees. Maintaining genetic diversity of UK plants is important for conservation of biological diversity, as well as for economic and cultural reasons. The UK is a Party to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and has also committed to a five-point action plan in response to the Foresight (2011) report on the future of food and farming (Environmental Audit Committee 2011) which includes actions on conserving plant genetic resources.
The indicator presents the genetic diversity of cultivated plants and their wild relatives in the UK, including other socio-economically and culturally valuable plant species, by assessing the genetic diversity of target plants held in UK germplasm collections. Effectively, it is a measure of the status of ex situ conservation of cultivated plants and their wild relatives in the UK. Any plant which grows in or is cultivated in the UK, or has grown in or has been cultivated in the UK, could be included in the indicator.
The indicator is based on an Enrichment Index developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO 2010) to describe the enhancement of ex situ plant germplasm collections. The method factors in duplication and similarity to existing accessions. An upward trending line indicates diversity is being added to collections - the steeper the line, the greater the diversity being incorporated. A horizontal line indicates no accessions, and hence no diversity, being added, and a downward trending line indicates diversity is being lost from collections. The total number of accessions illustrates the yearly collection effort added to the genetic resources institutes, without taking into account genetic diversity within those collections. Note, not all accessions of target species are included in the Enrichment Index, as some were excluded due to poor or insufficient data. Full calculation procedures are provided in the technical background paper.
This is one of a suite of 24 UK biodiversity indicators published by JNCC on behalf of Defra; the latest publication date was 19 January 2016 - for indicator C9b the latest data are for 2015. The supporting technical document details the methodology used to create the indicator.