Submitted to: Nature Climate Change
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/3/2025
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Crop genetic diversity is crucial for breeding programs to develop new varieties that are more resilient to climate change. A challenge to utilizing this diversity is identifying and accessing those crop varieties that may be adapted to current or future environmental stresses. To address this challenge, we considered a test case using a dataset of genomic information on sorghum landraces from across the world. We partitioned these data into geographic regions to understand the potential for climate adaptation in local landraces. These landraces were given an environmental adaptation score calculated using historical climate information and future climate projections. We found that the genetic diversity for adaptation to future climates is highly variable among "landraces" stored by national or regional gene banks, indicating that increased accessibility and sharing of plant genetic resources will be essential for breeders to develop new, environmentally-resilient varieties.

Technical Abstract: Crop diversity is an essential resource for national and international breeding programs aimed at preparing global agriculture for a changing climate to ensure global food security. To do this there are related risks that need to be evaluated (1) does the genetic diversity needed for climate adaptation exist somewhere? And (2) is such genetic diversity accessible? To evaluate these risks, we consider the test case of publicly available genotyped and georeferenced sorghum landraces (n = 1,937) to ask if diversity is sufficient to support breeding for climate change adaptation. Answering these questions allows for characterization of the best potential parents and the geographies that harbor the most potentially promising genetypes for crop improvement. We subset this data into national, regional, and global geographic regions, and complete/mini core collections to understand the potential for climate adaptation in regional germplasm. Study accessions were given a future climate resilience score based on future climatic projections and a genomic adaptive capacity score using genomic estimated adaptive values (GEAVs) generated from environmental genomic selection - EGS) to ask whether this accessible diversity stored in germplasm repositories is potentially sufficient to meet forecasted changes in growing environments under climate change. We find that genomic resilience capacity is highly variable among countries and regions. High geographical variability was also found for climate resilience. To equitably adapt agriculture to future climate conditions, increased accessibility to plant genetic resources is essential.