15/12/2015

FAO and Bioversity International have just released an updated version of the Multi-Crop Passport Descriptors (MCPD V.2.1), the international standard globally adopted for passport data of ex situ genebank accessions.

Descriptors provide an international language to manage data on plant genetic resources and their adoption facilitate the exchange of useful information for the Treaty community, particularly in the context of the Treaty’s Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing and the Global Information System on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (GLIS).

Digital Object Identifiers

While the version previously released in 2012 already included a descriptor to indicate if the material was included or not in the Multilateral System, the new version builds upon the recent scientific work undertaken by the International Treaty on permanent unique identifiers for the development of the Global Information System, and allows for the use of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to identify genetic material.

Once a DOI is assigned to the material, an accession can be referenced easily and unambiguously forever, even across organizations, with the advantage that users and modern information systems will be able to discover and access the information associated with the material and also to add value to it to through automatized web links.

The new release can be downloaded online:

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