Ex Situ Plant Conservation and Beyond

Havens, Kayri; Vitt, Pati; Maunder, Mike; Guerrant, Edward O.; Dixon, Kingsley W.

doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2006)56[525:espcab]2.0.co;2

Cited by 106 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Degraded and altered habitats have become a major portion of the mosaic of our landscapes (Vitt and Havens 2004). For a foreseeable future, increasing demands for natural resources will continue to degrade habitat and push an increasing number of plants towards extinction (Havens et al 2006). The best place to conserve plant biodiversity is in the wild, where a large number of species present in viable populations can persist in their natural habitats with their associated ecological links (Mc Naughton 1989).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Germination capacity and viability of threatened species collections in seed banks

2009

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Facing the current biodiversity crisis, the value of ex situ conservation has been increasingly acknowledged in international treaties and legislations. Seed banks are a good way of conserving biodiversity, providing that seeds are of high quality and at maximum viability. However, despite the number of established ex situ facilities, there is little information on seed viability in botanic garden seed banks. This paper analyses the status of the seed collection of the National Botanic Garden of Belgium by determining the germination capacity and viability of seeds that have been stored for 1-26 years. It aims at:(1) ensuring that existing storage conditions provide effective ex situ conservation of threatened species; (2) providing viability data on threatened species; (3) planning future collection and storage efforts for seeds of West European species of conservation value. Results from this study showed that the germination and viability percentages of the 250 tested species reached on average 59 and 79% respectively. Some families typically performed better than others. Within a species, consistent results were not always obtained. Over a quarter of accessions exhibited some degree of dormancy. Considering the current lack of knowledge in seed germination and dormancy of many rare and threatened species, we believe that the quality of a seed collection should be estimated by its viability and not by its germination percentage. This study calls for further research in order to better understand the biology of a range of threatened native species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Germination capacity and viability of threatened species collections in seed banks

2009

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“…Furthermore, the introduction of species outside their distributional range has fallen into disrepute nowadays (Henderson et al 2006). Today, botanical gardens commit themselves to contain the spread of invasive plant species (Havens et al 2006). But an important part of the collections of botanical gardens at higher latitude are historical collections that date from the time when collecting plants from other continents was fashionable.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Botanical gardens are of course much more worth than the number of species they harbour, given their conservation, research and educational activities (Hyams and MacQuitty 1969;Ashton 1988;Soderstrom 2001;Maunder et al 2004;Dosmann 2006;Havens et al 2006). Many botanical gardens are also major public and tourist attractions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Are the living collections of the world’s botanical gardens following species-richness patterns observed in natural ecosystems?

Pautasso

Parmentier

2007

Bot. Helv.

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Botanical gardens aim to promote the awareness, study and conservation of plant species diversity, but little is known about the species diversity of botanical gardens themselves. We therefore investigated whether the species richness of the worlds botanical gardens is related to their size, age and geographical location by compiling data from gardens in 124 different countries. The data show that even in these highly managed ecosystems, species richness can be described in terms of a relatively small number of large-scale patterns. As with most natural ecosystems, there were positive species-area and species-age relationships. There was also a positive latitudinal gradient in species richness, which contrasts with the trend observed in natural ecosystems. This discrepancy may be due to the use of heated greenhouses at high latitudes, the rarity of old botanical gardens in the tropics, and the problem of poverty in developing countries, where most hotspots of plant biodiversity are located. There is thus a need to allocate more funds to botanical gardens in species-rich regions. This study also calls for an increase in the coordination of data management between botanical gardens.

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“…Botanic gardens in the United States are often managed as non-profit organizations, although a number are managed by or affiliated with universities or non-federal government agencies. These institutions provide a diverse and evergrowing array of botanical education, training, research, application, management and monitoring services at local, national, and global scales (Affolter, 2003;Havens et al, 2006;Kuzevanov and Sizykh, 2006;Donaldson, 2009). …”

Section: Current Botanical Education and Training -Private Organizatimentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultivating the Power of Plants to Sustain and Enrich Life

Shaw¹,

Ballard²,

Blackmore³

et al. 2017

Plant Conservation Science and Practice

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PrefacePlants are central to the future of scientific discovery, human well-being, and the sustainable use and preservation of the nation's resources. The botanical community in the United States plays a mission-critical role in researching, conserving, and sustainably managing our plant diversity and resources. Botanical expertise is required to address current and future grand challenges and issues, including climate change mitigation, land management and wildlife habitat restoration, understanding the provision of ecosystem services, management and control of invasive species, and the conservation and recovery of rare species. Despite the fundamental role botanical capacity plays in tackling each of these issues, this report outlines where botanical capacity, particularly human capacity, is lacking across all sectors (government, academic, and private). In the United States over the past two decades, the botanical community has experienced significant changes in the demands placed upon it and the resources available to it. Since the early 1990s a series of published and anecdotal reports have outlined declining botanical capacity in many facets of this sector. This includes declines in human resources like botanical training and expertise, financial and management-level support for research, education and application, and the loss of infrastructure such as herbaria. The nation's science and land management agenda is suffering as a result.Government agencies are losing botanical capacity as staff botanists retire and positions are not refilled, either because positions are eliminated, replaced by individuals without equivalent botanical training, or because there is an inability to find appropriately qualified new candidates to fill them. Botanical education and training likewise appears to be on the decline, with many botany departments at universities being subsumed into more general or interdisciplinary departments, and subsequently losing resident expertise as professors retire and are replaced by individuals without botanical expertise. Organizations in the private sector (e.g. botanic gardens and other non-profit conservation organizations, as well as for-profit businesses and self-employed individuals) are filling these widening gaps in capacity, providing botanical training, expertise, application, and infrastructure where it otherwise would not exist. Though there are ongoing concerns about funding and program sustainability, organizations in the private sector are poised to do more with additional resources and the right partnerships.Prior to this project, it was unclear exactly where the most critical gaps existed and which sector was most capable of filling them in both the short and long-term. Funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation was awarded to the Chicago Botanic Garden to carry out a one-year project to assess the nation's current and future botanical capacity to conduct research in the plant sciences, to educate the public, train the next generation of plant scientists, and to...

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Ex Situ Plant Conservation and Beyond

Cited by 106 publications

References 20 publications

Germination capacity and viability of threatened species collections in seed banks

Germination capacity and viability of threatened species collections in seed banks

Are the living collections of the world’s botanical gardens following species-richness patterns observed in natural ecosystems?

Cultivating the Power of Plants to Sustain and Enrich Life

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