4.5. Conservation implications
Successful management of an endangered species often depends on accurate
identification of current and future cultivable areas. Thus, we combined
genetic diversity and ecological niche modeling to understand the
evolutionary dynamics in Kersting’s groundnut species across its
cultivated regions. Although the predictive models showed that future
climatic conditions will be more favorable to KG production, areas of
the Southern-Sudanian and Northern-Guinean zones of Benin were
identified as climatically unsuitable for the species and genetic
groups. Notwithstanding the above results, this approach may provide a
valuable tool for genetic resources managers for implementing collection
and conservation strategies of this orphan legume, as sustained by
Sohn et al. (2013) in their study
on endemic bird in South America. In particular, our suggestion is to
focus on the Pop1 with particularly high conservation value. This
genetic group is composed mainly of the white landrace mostly preferred,
grown and sold by farmers in Benin (Akohouéet al. 2019; Assogba et al.2015). However, the local seed system alone will likely be insufficient
to adapt the crop production to changing climate. Formal seeds
management efforts can improve the decision-making process that would
greatly help in the collection and conservation of those populations at
higher risk of extinction but also those that may thrive with climate
change. In general, African crop genetic resources conservation is
unfortunately poorly supported by National Governments, and material
from the regions is not fully represented in the important international
genebanks which afford the baseline for sustained public breeding
efforts (Burke et al. 2009).