Diversity Seek (DivSeek) Ruth Bastow – Global Plant Council

Diversity Seek (DivSeek) A global, community-driven initiative to harness the genetic potential of crop diversity Facilitate networking of like- minded, independent projects Add value to individual efforts around the globe So DivSeek was launched last year and is a …

Genetic resources >7M accessions in 1,700 genebanks Exhibit a wide range of diversity Fundamental building blocks for crop improvement Profoundly underutilized Lack of understanding of the genetic basis Untapped opportunity So how can plant genetic resources help us meet this challenge? Currently there are over 7 million accession held in 1,700 genebanks globally. These accessions exhibit a wide range of diversity a small snap shot of this morphological diversity can be seen on the right. This diversity could help to provide the fundamental building blocks for crop improvement such as disease resistance or stress tolerance. However at the moment these resources are under utilized often because of the lack of understanding of genetic determinant of this variation and as such they represent an untapped opportunity

Convergence of ideas & concepts across crops and organizations: Individual projects Convergence of ideas & concepts across crops and organizations: Genome re-sequencing Genome profiling (Pre)breeding Field trials Phenomics 3,000 Rice Genomes Project (IRRI) ✔   Seeds of Discovery (CIMMYT) 3,000 Chickpea Genomes (ICRISAT) Bean_Adapt (ERA-CAPS) Crop Wild Relatives Project (GCDT) BRIDGE Project (IPK) ? BamYIELD (CFF) Many other projects In fact many projects across the globe are already using these technologies to better understand the accessions and collections they are working with. The slide illustrates a snap shot of just some of these projects this is by no means exhaustive and is just to provide some examples. You can see that each of the projects is utilizing a different technology or approach and what we wanted to understand was if there was some convergence of ideas/concepts across crops and organizations

Community of Practice So there are numerous efforts taking place across the globe each with its own focus but also its own expertise and understanding often related to a specific crop or technology and what DivSeek aims to do is link this together to form a community of practice which can develop (where needed) and promote for common data standards and frameworks to assemble network of interoperable data sets & repositories. Facilitate common research approaches and help to generate cross-cutting tools and platforms & strengthen capacity This would help prevent duplication of effort and promote sharing of knowledge, ideas and best practice. Develop and promote common data standards and frameworks to assemble network of interoperable data sets & repositories Facilitate common research approaches and help to generate cross-cutting tools and platforms & strengthen capacity

DivSeek was launched in 2015 and present DivSeek has 68 partners from across the globe including Universities, Institutions, Funding Bodies, Goverment Departments, NGOs and Botanical Gardens. A subset of some of those organisation is shown in this slide. If your organisations would like to join DivSeek please do visit our website and download an application form

Landscape of relevant projects 126 projects in areas of relevance to DivSeek Projects evaluating crop diversity Rice, maize, wheat, chickpea, barley, bambara groundnut, pea, cassava, tomato, common bean, brassicas, potato, eggplant, pepper, … Crop portals and databases Projects & initiatives developing software tools and data standards Expand the study - http://www.divseek.org/landscape/ We have also undertaken a landscape study to identify project of relevance to DivSeek so that we might learn from them. To date we have identified 126 projects

Community Support, Adding Value Promote better use of germplasm to address global challenges Promote the use of PUID for germplasm Training and capacity building to meet community needs Hosting and/or contributing to meetings and workshops that bring together projects around crops or technologies Develop and promoting agreed-upon norms, standards, and best practices for diversity research Hosting and/or contributing to hands on/technical training events At the same we have also begun to support and assist the community via a number of different activities including

Community Needs and Actions Develop Working Groups to actively engage DivSeek Partners in addressing issues of common interest. Data Standards for Interoperable Tools Genebank Information Management System Genomics for Genebanks Phenotyping for Seed Diversity Semantics for Harmonizing Trait and Agronomic Data Translational Approaches for Minor and Underutilized Crops FAIR Data

Working Groups Data Standards for Interoperable Tools Aim to highlight gaps in interoperability that impede workflows important to the communities supported by DivSeek Promote best practice in data sharing through the development and use of open and interoperable software powered by the adoption of open standards Provide guidance and documentation on current tools that promote sharing and interoperability Work with DivSeek partners to improve current data management processes and develop new processes where required Wheat Initiative, Research Data Alliance, ELIXIR, (GOBII), (GODAN), Breeding API (BRAPI),

Working Groups Semantics for Harmonizing Trait and Agronomic Data Establish best practices for harmonizing data and metadata to support knowledge exchange among DivSeek partners Identify, develop and promote trait dictionaries and ontologies for communities of practice (Crop Ontology) Work with DivSeek partners to identify minimum semantics requirements for collecting, sharing and exchanging phenotype data Work with DivSeek partners to develop best practice and guidelines for data description and annotation.

Sharing Knowledge and Expertise and Best Practice Between DivSeek, IGAD, RDA & GODAN

apply-to-join-divseek/ Thank you! Visit the website www.divseek.org Contact us at info@divseek.org Look at the FAQs www.divseek.org/faqs Become a Partner www.divseek.org/ apply-to-join-divseek/ So I hope that has given you a brief introduction to DivSeek You can also find more information on our website, via our FAQs, please do contact us and consider becoming a partner