Revista ArtículoEcuador has high biodiversity in relation to its relatively small surface area, and this is recognized worldwide. One subgroup of this biodiversity, agrobiodiversity, is particularly important, since it forms the basis of food security and sovereign for all Ecuadorians. To this agrobiodiversity, which can be found on small farms and cultivated plots throughout the country, can be added crop wild relatives. Crop wild relatives (CWR) are commonly defined in terms of wild species that are closely related to agricultural and horticultural crops (Maxted and Kell, 2009). Using wild relatives to improve crops is a practice that dates back more than 70 years, albeit with greater emphasis in the last 30, and it has contributed genes for pest and disease resistance, abiotic factor tolerance, increasing quality and yield, etc. Important worldwide crops such as tomato, potato, rice, wheat, corn, barley, cassava, millet, sunflower, lettuce, banana, peanut and chickpea have received charac- teristics donated by their wild relatives that have contributed to solving problems in cultivated varieties and helped to feed the world’s population (Hajjar and Hodkin, 2007).Ecuador tiene una alta biodiversidad en relación con su superficie relativamente pequeña, y esto es reconocido en todo el mundo. Un subgrupo de esta biodiversidad, la agrobiodiversidad, es particularmente importante, ya que constituye la base de la seguridad alimentaria y soberana de todos los ecuatorianos. A esta agrobiodiversidad, que se puede encontrar en pequeñas granjas y parcelas cultivadas en todo el país, se pueden agregar cultivos de parientes silvestres. Los parientes silvestres de cultivos (CWR) se definen comúnmente en términos de especies silvestres que