marker-assisted selection in wheat - ictsd

Chapter 2 – An assessment of the use of molecular markers in developing countries 17IntroductionAssessments relating to the use of molecularmarkers in crop plants are based on twosources of information: (i) FAO-BioDeC,a searchable database of biotechnologyproducts and techniques in use and in thepipeline in developing and transition countries(available at www.fao.org/biotech/inventory_admin/dep/default.asp); and(ii) FAO country reports produced bynational agricultural research systems(NARS) as part of a survey of country informationand trends in resources allocated forapplied plant breeding and related biotechnology,with the aim of raising awareness,evaluating opportunities for investmentand designing national, regional and/orglobal strategies to strengthen the capacityof national plant breeding programmes(Guimarães, Kueneman and Carena, 2006).As the FAO-BioDeC database containslittle information on the use of molecularmarkers in relation to animals, it is evenmore difficult to give a comprehensiveoverview of the situation with respect tolivestock in developing countries than it isfor crops. However, information on the useof molecular markers was drawn from thecountry reports on animal genetic resources(AnGR) management submitted to FAOas part of the preparation of the FirstReport on the State of the World’s AnimalGenetic Resources (SoW-AnGR) and froma questionnaire survey on genetic diversitystudies. The country reports covered a widevariety of aspects of AnGR managementand contain only quite general informationabout the role of molecular techniques. Thequestionnaire survey looked specifically atthe use of molecular markers in livestockgenetic diversity studies and was directedto researchers involved in such studies. Assuch, it gives an indication of where geneticdiversity studies are being undertaken andwhich markers are primarily used, but itdoes not provide a complete picture.While this book focuses on the useof markers to assist in genetic selection(MAS), it is often difficult to obtain specificinformation on the extent to which markersare used for this purpose in developingcountries. For this reason, some of the datapresented in this chapter cover the overalluse of molecular markers in developingcountries and do not allow discriminationbetween molecular markers used forselection from uses for other purposes,such as the descriptive studies of geneticdiversity within populations or geneticdistance between populations. Other datapresented here describe the use of molecularmarkers for measuring genetic diversityonly. In this case, the information can beconsidered as an indicator of the humancapacity and infrastructure available foruse of markers in MAS. For these reasons,and due to the incomplete nature of someof the information available, this overviewshould be considered preliminary, but stillmeaningful.FAO-BioDeCAt the time of writing (September 2006),FAO-BioDeC includes 2 336 entries relatedto crops and 829 entries related toforest trees. The database currently covers74 developing countries, including countrieswith economies in transition.No quantitative information is availableconcerning the human capacity or fundinginvolved in any research initiative. Activitiescarried out in developed countries or atinternational research centres, such as thosethat are part of the Consultative Groupon International Agricultural Research(CGIAR), are not considered.To compile the data in FAO-BioDeC,several sources of information were