Trinity College Botanic Garden long-term monitoring program v1

Abstract

Botanic gardens hold large, documented, and accessible collections of living plants. These represent unique subsets of taxa from different biogeographical regions growing under common environmental conditions, connecting people to global plant research and conservation efforts while offering a place beneficial for human health and wellbeing. Despite Botanic Gardens being an ideal setting for climate change research, their potential for comparative, long-term studies and outreach in the field is still underutilised. As part of its ten year strategy, Trinity College Botanic Garden (TCBG) aims to tap this potential and establish a programme for long-term (>30 years) monitoring of key physiological performances in its living woody plant collection. The programme will also assess particulate pollution (PM10 and PM2.5) interception by the same trees, pairing climate change and urban green research. Importantly, the project will include the design of a transferable protocol, produce vouchered herbarium specimens as a future historical archive and as a pedagogical tool, and support the garden outreach strategy, so as to nurture its link with both Trinity College Dublin and local communities, ensuring the garden’s legacy into the future.