| ABA | Abscisic acid |
| AB-QTL | Advanced back cross quantitative trait locus |
| AFLPs | Amplified fragment length polymorphism markers |
| AI | Artificial insemination |
| AnGR | Animal genetic resources |
| BAC | Bacterial artificial chromosones |
| BECA | Biosciences Eastern and Central Africa |
| CBD | Convention on Biological Diversity |
| cDNA | Complementary DNA |
| CGIAR | Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research |
| CGRFA | Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture |
| CPA | Cryoprotective agents |
| CV | Coefficient of variation |
| EG | Ethylene glycol |
| EST | Expressed sequence tag |
| ESU | Evolutionary significant unit |
| FAO | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations |
| FAO-WGB | FAO Working Group on Biotechnology |
| FGR | Forest genetic resources |
| GIFT | Genetic improvement of farmed tilapia |
| He | Expected heterozygosity |
| Ho | Observed heterozygosity |
| ICRAF | World Agroforestry Centre |
| ILRI | International Livestock Research Institute |
| INIBAP | International Network for Improvement of Banana and Plantain |
| IPGRI | International Plant Genetic Resources Institute |
| ISAG | International Society for Animal Genetics |
| ISSR | Inter-single sequence repeat |
| IUCN | World Conservation Union |
| IUFRO | International Union of Forest Research Organizations |
| LD | Linkage disequilibrum |
| mtDNA | Mitochondrial DNA |
| Ne | Effective population size |
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |
| PCR | Polymerase chain reaction |
| PGRFA | Plant genetic resources for food and agriculture |
| PIC | Polymorphic index content |
| QTL | Quantitative trait loci |
| RAPD | Random amplified polymorphic DNA |
| RFLP | Restriction fragment length polymoprhism |
| SAMPL | Selective amplification of microsatellite polymorphic loci |
| SIGA | Italian Society of Agriculture Genetics |
| SNP | Single nucleotide polymorphism |
| SoW-AnGR | State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources |
| SoW-PGRFA | State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture |
| SSR | Simple sequence repeats |
| UNEP | United Nations Environment Programme |
| UNFF | United Nations Forum on Forests |
| UPGMA | Unweighted pair-group method arithmetic average |
