Botanicgardens- science,innovationand pushingboundaries · Journal of Botanic Gardens Conservation International Volume 9 • Number 1 • January 2012 Botanicgardens-science,innovationand

Journal of Botanic Gardens Conservation International

Volume 9 • Number 1 • January 2012

Botanic gardens -science, innovation and

pushing boundaries

BGCI • 2012 • BGjournal • Vol 9 (1)01

BGjournal is published by Botanic Gardens ConservationInternational (BGCI). It is published twice a year and is sentto all BGCI members. Membership is open to all interestedindividuals, institutions and organisations that support theaims of BGCI (see inside back cover for Membershipapplication form).

Further details available from:

• Botanic Gardens Conservation International, DescansoHouse, 199 Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3BWUK. Tel: +44 (0)20 8332 5953, Fax: +44 (0)20 8332 5956E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.org

• BGCI-Russia, c/o Main Botanical Gardens,Botanicheskaya st., 4, Moscow 127276, Russia.Tel: +7 (095) 219 6160 / 5377, Fax: +7 (095) 218 0525,E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.ru

• BGCI-Netherlands, c/o Delft University of TechnologyJulianalaan 67, NL-2628 BC Delft, NetherlandsTel: +31 15 278 4714 Fax: +31 15 278 2355E-mail: [email protected]

• BGCI-Canarias, c/o Jardín Botánico Canario Viera y Clavijo,Apartado de Correos 14, Tafira Alta 35017,Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Spain.Tel: +34 928 21 95 80/82/83, Fax: +34 928 21 95 81,E-mail: [email protected]

• BGCI-China, 723 Xingke Rd., Guangzhou 510650 China.Tel:(86)20-37252692. email: [email protected]/china

• BGCI-Colombia, c/o Jardín Botánico de Bogotá,Jose Celestino Mutis, Av. No. 61-13 – A.A. 59887,Santa Fe de Bogotá, D.C., Colombia. Tel: +57 630 0949,Fax: +57 630 5075, E-mail: [email protected],www.humboldt.org.co/jardinesdecolombia/html/la_red.htm

• BGCI(US) Inc, c/o Chicago Botanic Garden,1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, Illinois 60022, USA.E-mail: [email protected], www.bgci.org/usa

BGCI is a worldwide membership organisation established in1987. Its mission is to mobilise botanic gardens and engagepartners in securing plant diversity for the well-being ofpeople and the planet. BGCI is an independent organisationregistered in the United Kingdom as a charity (Charity Reg No1098834) and a company limited by guarantee, No 4673175.BGCI is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation in theUSA and is a registered non-profit organisation in Russia.

Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarilyreflect the views of the Boards or staff of BGCI or of itsmembers

Suzanne SharrockDirector of GlobalProgrammes

EDITORS

Sara OldfieldSecretary General

Volume 9 • Number 1

Cover Photo: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (BGCI)

Design: John Morgan, Seascapewww.seascapedesign.co.uk

PLANTS FOR THE FUTURE –A FUTURE FOR OUR PLANETTOWARDS A PROTOCOL FORGENETIC MANAGEMENT OF EXSITU LIVING PLANT COLLECTIONSSTÉPHANIE SAMAIN &EDUARDO CIRES

EDITORIAL SARA OLDFIELD

GeoCAT - AN OPEN SOURCETOOL FOR RAPID RED LISTASSESSMENTSSTEVEN BACHMAN & JUSTIN MOAT

FROM FREEZING TO THE FIELD—IN VITRO METHODS ASSISTINGPLANT CONSERVATIONVALERIE PENCE

EXCITING HORTICULTURALCHALLENGES AT THE OMANBOTANIC GARDENIAN OLIVER, KHALID AL-FARSI,ABDULLAH AL-HOSNI, SALIMAL-MAKMARI, SARAH KNEEBONE

THE ASSISTED MIGRATIONDEBATE – BOTANIC GARDENSTO THE RESCUE?MARIA HÄLLFORS, ELINA VAARA &SUSANNA LEHVÄVIRTA

BARCODE WALES: DNABARCODING THE NATION’SNATIVE FLOWERING PLANTS ANDCONIFERS NATASHA DE VERE

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02

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DREAMING OF SHEEP-EATINGPLANTS MATTHEW JEBB

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GROWING THE SOCIAL ROLE OFBOTANIC GARDENS BGCI

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SAFEGUARDING AUSTRALIA’SFLORA THROUGH THEAUSTRALIAN SEED BANKPARTNERSHIP LUCY SUTHERLAND

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www.seascapedesign.co.uk

www.bgci.org/usa

www.humboldt.org.co/jardinesdecolombia/html/la_red.htm

www.bgci.org/china

www.botanischetuin.tudelft.nl

www.bgci.org

The study and cultivation of plantdiversity by botanic gardens isfirmly rooted in the past but

innovative new approaches look to thefuture. Advances in science andtechnology are providing newopportunities to understand plantdiversity and develop solutions tocurrent environmental problems. Thisissue of BGjournal celebrates innovationin botanic gardens – pushing theboundaries of scientific knowledge andits practical application. It also considersthe engagement of gardens with theirvisitors to share the science and makeenvironmental knowledge moreaccessible and relevant to wideraudiences.

Scientific research has been animportant component of the work inbotanic gardens for over 500 years.Documented plant collections continueto provide living laboratories and modelsof ecological interactions. Fromobservation of whole plants to geneticand DNA analysis new techniques areenabling deeper understanding of theplants in collections that have importantimplications for management of diversityin the wild. The application of newtechniques for identifying plant speciesis described by de Vere; fordocumenting their conservation statusby Bachman and Moat, for conservingin vitro by Valerie Pence andcommunicating with the public byMatthew Jebb.

The ex situ collections of plant materialand expertise within botanic gardens areincreasingly being used to supportspecies reintroduction and ecologicalrestoration programmes. BGCI iscurrently involved in the development ofthe Ecological Restoration Alliance of

grow all the native species of Oman isdescribed by Oliver, Al-Farsi, Al-Hosni,Al-Makmari and Kneebone.

I hope you enjoy the richness of ideaspresented in this issue of BGjournal!BGCI will strive to share the best ofbotanic garden innovations, and at timesprovocative, ideas. Please let us knowyour thoughts and ideas for futuredebate as we collectively secure planetdiversity for people and the planet.

Sara OldfieldSecretary General, BGCI

botanic gardens that will be launched inMay this year with an ambitious actionplan to restore 100 priority sites aroundthe world. This scheme is a response tothe urgent need to prevent the furtherloss of ecosystem services and tosupport international biodiversity policyobjective. Availability of appropriateplant material is one of the prerequisitesfor meeting this objective. Botanicgardens collectively hold around onethird of all plant species and thusprovide a vital store for restoration.The Australian Seed Bank Partnershipdescribed by Sutherland is an excitingnew approach strengthening Australia’scapacity to restore and connectlandscapes and ecosystems throughseed-based restoration. The paper bySamain and Cires provides an exampleof how material in collections can beevaluated to show its appropriatenessfor restoration in the wild. The authorsremind us that to be of conservationvalue, living collections must begenetically representative and theydescribe the first comprehensive studyof three plant groups sampled in the wildand in living collections.

Restoration needs to take into accountchanging climatic conditions and thesomewhat controversial question ofassisted migration is tackled by Hallfors,Vaara and Lehvavirta in their article thathighlights the responsibility, skills andopportunities that botanic gardens havein this emerging field.

The creation of new botanic gardensallows the opportunity for research tobe fully integrated with garden design,management of living collections,education and training from the outset.Exciting progress is the development ofthe Oman Botanic Garden that aims to

BGCI • 2012 • BGjournal • Vol 9 (1) • 0202

EDITORIALCELEBRATING INNOVATIONIN BOTANIC GARDENS

Introduction

It is estimated that one third of all plantspecies are threatened with extinctionand yet plants continue to be

underrepresented in conservationdebates and policies. However, globalinitiatives, such as the Global Strategyfor Plant Conservation (GSPC) areaiming to bring a significant change. Asstated in Target 8 of the GSPC, at least75% of threatened plant species shouldbe present in ex situ collections.Botanical gardens play a key role inconservation of plant diversity, but onlyabout 30% of globally threatened plantspecies are currently held in their livingcollections (Oldfield, 2010). To be ofconservation value, living collectionsmust be genetically representative.Although information on genetic diversityin ex situ collections is scarce, it isthought that diversity is low incollections of numerous species.Moreover, besides the many studies andinitiatives for specific taxa, ourknowledge about the genetic diversity ofthreatened plant species in general isquite limited. This lack of insight intogenetic diversity of threatened wild plantspecies contrasts with the broadknowledge about crops and their wildrelatives. This fact is also reflected byGSPC Target 9, which specifically statesthat 70% of the genetic diversity ofcrops, including their wild relatives andother socio-economically valuable plantspecies, should be conserved. We stillhave a long way to go to understandinggenetic diversity in threatened plants,conserving an important part of thisdiversity in ex situ collections, definingwhich percentage of genetic diversitymight be feasible and/or desirable to aimfor, and finally making this available forconservation and restoration projects.

BGCI • 2012 • BGjournal • Vol 9 (1) • 03-0603

PLANTS FOR THE FUTURE –A FUTURE FOR OUR PLANETTOWARDS A PROTOCOL FOR GENETIC MANAGEMENTOF EX SITU LIVING PLANT COLLECTIONS

Authors: Stéphanie Samain and Eduardo Cires

There is an urgent need for worldwide assessment ofgenetic diversity of ex situ living plant collections andcomparison with wild populations, especially forthreatened species. The Botanical Garden of GhentUniversity, Belgium is addressing this need.

Esteban Martínez climbing a tree to collect a newly discovered Hydrangea species on the volcano Tacaná inChiapas state in southeast Mexico near the border with Guatemala. Stems with leaves of this species arevisible on all the trunks (Marie-Stéphanie Samain).

Setting the stage

The GSPC 2011-2020 states that:

“ Without plants there is no

life. The functioning of the

planet, and our survival, depends

upon plants.”Achieving Target 8 of the GSPC dependson the existence of geneticallyrepresentative collections, and these areessential for recovery and restorationwork. Our focus should therefore be onassessing and ensuring the conservationvalue of ex situ collections (Sharrock etal., 2010).

Assessments of a representative sampleof plant species will provide a basis foran initial estimation of a baseline, and tomonitor progress towards this target.Therefore, toolkits under this target needto include protocols for geneticmanagement of ex situ collections andconsequent reintroductions.

One of the suggested milestones to serveas a step towards the 2020 target is thatex situ collections of all criticallyendangered species should begenetically representative of the species(SBSTTA, 2010). However, preliminaryobservations and data suggest that thiscurrently is not the case in manycollections, as the genetic diversity fromwild population to ex situ collections‘gradually’ decreases (= geneticbottleneck) as a consequence of 1)

Angiosperm groups with different lifehistories and growth forms. A range ofgenomic tools will be applied to wild andex situ individuals of selected species ofthe flagship groups Hydrangea, Magnoliaand Cactaceae to enable rapidcharacterization of genetic variation,providing 1) support for specificconservation actions, and 2) generalguidelines and a protocol on geneticmanagement for acquiring accessions forex situ collections, in order to be used bycollectors and botanical gardensworldwide in the framework of theachievement of Target 8 of the GSPC.

Sampling and lab work

The three plant groups being studied areconsidered as priority groups for BGCI,the IUCN/SSC Global Trees SpecialistGroup and the International Organizationfor Succulent Plant Study (IOS), withwhom we cooperate. These groups arerather well-studied taxonomically andare also very important in thehorticultural trade, with especiallyCactaceae also suffering from illegalharvest and trade. Despite the fact thatthese groups are a priority forconservation, the genetic diversity withinex situ collections is almost entirelyunknown, and has not been comparedwith wild populations. There is clearly anurgent need for this research.

habitat destruction narrowing geneticdiversity and subsequent evolution(= genetic erosion), 2) collection bias(‘easy’ localities, selection ofmorphological variation which is notnecessarily reflected by genetic variation),3) cultivation bottleneck (accessionsdying because of unsuitable conditions).Hence, the establishment of a protocolguiding genetic management during thedifferent steps (wild population – ex situcollection – reintroduction) is essential forimplementation of Target 8 of the GSPCand, ultimately, for safeguarding thefuture of our planet.

Towards an assessment forflagship groups: Hydrangea,Magnolia and Cactaceae

The Botanical Garden and the ResearchGroup Spermatophytes of GhentUniversity (Belgium) are increasinglyinvolved in conservation of the plantgroups which are housed in their livingcollections and studied in ongoingprojects, such as Peperomia (Samain etal., 2010), Hydrangea (Red List project incooperation with BGCI, including aspecific conservation project in Mexico),and Aristolochia (Rivera Hernández &Samain, 2011). Our strategy, to combinefundamental botanical research withconservational efforts, has also led to theestablishment of a project, initiated in2011, which will be continued andaccelerated thanks to the support of theFondation Franklinia. Within this projectwe aim to compare genetic diversitybetween wild populations and ex situcollections of three unrelated


A happy team of botanists and local children after discovering a new Hydrangea species on the volcanoTacaná in Chiapas state in southeast Mexico near the border with Guatemala (Paco Najarro).

Collecting Hydrangea aspera with local botany studentson mountain Taiping Shan, Taiwan ( Eduardo Cires).

“ Around one-third of the

globally threatened species that

are found in botanic garden

collections are recorded in only

one collection.”Global and/or local Red Lists areavailable for each group (Magnolia:Cicuzza et al., 2007; Cactaceae: e.g.IUCN, 2011) or are being prepared(Hydrangea s.l.). These groups representdifferent unrelated families ofAngiosperms, with different habitatpreferences and a range of life historytraits. Within each group, taxa areselected based on: 1) presence in arepresentative number of public andaccessible private ex situ collections(botanical gardens, arboreta, etc.), 2)well-documented origin of theaccessions, and 3) availability of materialverified by specialists. Because of thesecond criterion, the quantity of usefulaccessions available for the research is

Field work has already been or will beperformed in countries and areas wherethe Research Group has extensive fieldexperience and local cooperationpartners (Latin America and East Asia).Within the wild populations, arepresentative sample of individuals willbe collected, meanwhile in the ex situcollections we aim to include an equalnumber of accessions from as manygardens as possible. In addition, ourwork on Hydrangea will also help to buildnew living collections, e.g. in Mexico,supported by the Mohamed Bin ZayedSpecies Conservation Fund.Molecular tools provide valuable data ondiversity through their ability to detectvariation at the DNA level. Identificationis of fundamental importance in diversitystudies in a variety of different ways. Forevaluation of species diversity, it isessential that individuals can beclassified accurately. The identification oftaxonomic units and endangeredspecies, whose genetic constitution isdistinct from their more abundantrelatives, is important in thedevelopment of appropriateconservation strategies. Takingadvantage of current moleculartechniques, relatively quick assessmentsof genetic diversity in plants can beperformed using well-sampled materialand ready-made protocols, as long asthe most limiting factor, funding, isavailable. For each flagship species,different molecular techniques (e.g.RFLP, microsatellites, AFLP, ISSR, PCRsequencing) are currently being testedand/or developed, with comparisons ofcost versus data yielded, ease of use,and applicability for conservation

much reduced, but we believe it is notuseful to include samples withoutdocumented origin, as their value, forexample in reintroduction projects, ishighly doubtful. Additionally, Magnoliaand Hydrangea individuals are plantswith life spans of several hundred years,predating fragmentation events, so wewill obtain reliable genetic informationthat may help genetic restorationprojects (e.g. López et al., 2008).

Availability in botanical garden collectionshas been checked via the PlantSearchmodule on the BGCI website(http://www.bgci.org/plant_search.php) orvia direct and ongoing communicationwith gardens. A final selection criterion isthat most of the species are ‘Vulnerable’,‘Endangered’ or ‘Critically Endangered’according to IUCN Red List categoriesand criteria, hence they are priorityspecies for conservation and for use inrecovery and restoration work.Furthermore, the genetic diversity of theserare species will be compared with somemore common or widespread species.

BGCI • 2012 • BGjournal • Vol 9 (1)

Characteristic

Genomic abundancePart of genome surveyedAmount of DNA required

Type of polymorphism

Level of polymorphismInheritanceEase of use

Automation possibleCost of automationDevelopment costs

Reproducibility (reliability)Level of training required

Cloning and/or sequencingRadioactive detection

Proprietary rights status

RFLP

HighLow copy coding regions

High

Single base changes,insertion, deletion

MediumCodominant

Labour intensiveLowHigh

MediumHighLowYes

Yes/NoNo

Microsatellite

MediumWhole genome

Low

Changes in lengthof repeats

HighCodominant

EasyHighHighHighHigh

Low/MediumYes

Yes/NoNo (some licensed)

AFLP

Very highWhole genome

Medium


Very highDominant

Difficult initiallyMedium

HighLowHigh

MediumNo

Yes/NoLicensed

ISSR

MediumWhole genome

Low


HighDominant

EasyMediumMedium

LowMedium to high

LowNoNo

Licensed

PCR sequencing

Very highWhole genome

Low


Very high–

EasyHighHighHighHighHighYes

Yes/NoNo (some licensed)

Table 1. Comparative assessment of some of the salient characteristics of different molecular genetic screening techniques: RFLP (or Restriction fragment length polymorphism),Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs), AFLP (or Amplified fragment length polymorphism), ISSR (or Inter Simple Sequence Repeat) and PCR sequencing.

Try another molecularmarker and/or primers

Did we detect enoughgenetic variability?

Are these groupsconsistent with the

genetic parameters?

Identification of prioritypopulations to be ex situ

conserved

Choose those npopulations which bestrepresent each group

Reinforcing the sampling

Asian populationsAmerican populations

Can we divide the populationinto k independent groups

a priori?

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Flow chart representing themain strategies to assessthe genetic diversity in theflagship groups studied.

research (Table 1). For the elaboration ofthese techniques, either in-houseexperience has been developed orcollaboration with experienced researchgroups has been set up.

Outlook – Connecting the dots

To our knowledge, this is the firstcomprehensive study of this kind, with aconstant evaluation of the differenttechniques, in order to assess theprogress of the project (see Figure 1).The expected results can be subdividedin two levels: i) specific results for eachgroup: they will provide insight intogenetic diversity and history, providing abasis for further conservation work; ii)comparison of different unrelated groupswith different life histories and growthforms: this approach will lead to ageneral overview of the genetic diversityavailable in wild populations and ex situcollections, as well as of the specificproblems involved with decreasinggenetic diversity from the wild to thecollection, information which will beextremely useful for implementation ofTarget 8 of the GSPC.

Some important specific outcomes arelisted here: 1) assessment of percentageof genetic diversity present in ex situcollections worldwide for the three plantgroups under study, 2) identification ofpriority populations for ex situconservation, 3) definition of agenetically representative collection(compared to Target 9 of the GSPCstating that 70% of the genetic diversityof crops and other socio-economicalvaluable plant species should be

, López, D.M., Bock, B.C. and Bedoya,G. 2008. Genetic structure in remnantpopulations of an endangered AndeanMagnolia. Biotropica 40: 375-379.

,Oldfield, S. 2010. Plant conservation:facing tough choices. Bioscience 30:778-779.

,Rivera Hernández, J.E. and Samain,M.S. 2011.Where has Aristolochiatricaudata (Aristolochiaceae) gone?New record of a critically endangeredspecies in Oaxaca, Mexico. RevistaMexicana de Biodiversidad 82: 281-286.

, Samain, M.S., Dugardin, C. andGoetghebeur, P. 2010. Peperomiareference collection: an ex situ livingplant collection for scientific research.Proceedings of the 4th Global BotanicGardens Congress, June 2010.

, SBSTTA, 2010. Progress in theimplementation of Global Strategy forPlant Conservation and developmentof a consolidated update beyond2010. UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/14/INF/16.

, Sharrock, S., Hird, A., Kramer, A. andOldfield, S. (Comp.) 2010. Savingplants, saving the planet: BotanicGardens and the implementation ofGSPC Target 8. BGCI, Richmond, UK.

Marie-Stéphanie Samain andEduardo CiresGhent UniversityResearch GroupSpermatophytes & BotanicalGardenK.L. Ledeganckstraat 35B-9000 GentE-mail: [email protected]

conserved), 4) indication of the numberof samples that needs to be collected inthe wild to obtain a geneticallyrepresentative collection, 5) testing thehypothesis that endangered species withnarrow distribution are geneticallylimited, 6) conservation of flagshipspecies, and finally, 7) reports andpublications in cooperation with e.g.BGCI, the IUCN/SSC Global TreesSpecialist Group and the IOS.Last but not least, it has already becomeclear during this pilot year 2011 that thisstudy will lead to further internationalcooperation with many interestedgardens and researchers.

“ We expect to form a

scientific network studying

genetic diversity in plants for

conservation purposes under the

auspices of BGCI.”Please feel free to contact us if youwould like to cooperate, exchangeexperiences, or if you have commentsor questions.

References

,Cicuzza, D., Newton, A. and Oldfield,S. 2007. The red list of Magnoliaceae.Fauna & Flora International.Cambridge, UK.

, IUCN, 2011. IUCN red list ofthreatened species.http://www.iucnredlist.org/ (AccessedJanuary 2012).


Marie-Stéphanie Samain preparing herbariumspecimens of a new Hydrangea species of LosTuxtlas, state of Veracruz, Mexico (Esteban Martínez).

Mountain Wawu Shan, Sichuan, China, location of several Hydrangea specimens (Eduardo Cires).

The ability to identify plant speciesis fundamental to ourunderstanding of the world around

us. To conserve plants, their habitats andecosystems we need to be able toidentify and monitor species.

“ Objective 1 of the Global

Strategy for Plant Conservation

is that: “plant diversity is well

understood, documented and

recognized.”

DNA barcoding uses short sections of DNAto act as a unique identifier for species. Theaim of DNA barcoding is to have globalagreement on the regions of DNA andprotocols used for different groups of livingthings in order to create an internationalresource for species identification. To beginwith, reference DNA databases aredeveloped using species identified by ataxonomic expert; unknown DNAsequences can then be compared to theseto make an identification. Open Science iskey, DNA barcodes, their associatedinformation and protocols for theirdevelopment should be available toeveryone, from researchers, regulatoryauthorities to the general public.

Correct identification is also vital in orderfor us to use plants for food, medicine ormaterials. Identification of plants oftenrelies on morphological examination, butaround the world there is a shortage oftaxonomic experts able to identifyspecies. Beyond this, it is often desirableto be able to identify species frommaterial where morphologicalapproaches are difficult or impossible touse; for example, from pollen, roots,seeds, or fragments of tissue. In thesesituations DNA-based identificationsystems can be used and in 2003 PaulHebert coined the term ‘DNA barcoding’(Hebert et al., 2003).


BARCODE WALES:DNA BARCODING THE NATION’S NATIVEFLOWERING PLANTS AND CONIFERS

Author: Natasha de Vere

DNA-based identification systems can help toidentify and monitor species and provide aplatform for a wide range of applications whereaccurate species identification is required.

DNA-barcoding at the NBGW laboratory.

There are now initiatives throughout theworld for DNA barcoding species from allof the kingdoms of life, such as theInternational Barcode of Life initiative(IBOL), which works across 25 countriesand aims to DNA barcode 5 millionspecimens from 500,000 species withinfive years. The Consortium of theBarcode of Life (CBOL) is devoted topromoting DNA barcoding as a globalstandard for DNA-based speciesidentification and the Barcode of LifeData System (BOLD) provides a keyrepository for DNA barcodes and theirassociated data (Ratnasingham andHebert, 2007). In 2009, the Plant WorkingGroup of CBOL proposed two sections ofgenes within the chloroplast genome,rbcL and matK, for plant DNA barcoding,with the suggestion that more markersmay be required (CBOL Plant WorkingGroup, 2009). In December 2011 thenuclear gene ITS was announced as theofficial barcode for fungi during the 4thInternational Barcode of Life Conferencein Adelaide, Australia.

Projects are now underway to DNAbarcode the world's plant species. Forexample, the New York Botanic Gardenis DNA barcoding the world's trees,whilst the Universities of Adelaide andBritish Columbia are working on grasses.Some projects are concentrating onfloristic regions: Korea University isworking on the flora of Korea, theUniversity of Johannesburg on the floraof the Kruger National Park, theSmithsonian Institute on tropical forestryplots and institutions throughout Chinaare working together to DNA barcodetheir flora. The Royal Botanic GardenEdinburgh is DNA barcoding British

barcodes need to have access to thisinformation, along with a scan of theherbarium voucher. Where fresh materialis collected for DNA barcoding anassociated herbarium voucher mustalways be made. The only exception tothis is for endangered species wherecreating a voucher is not possible onconservation grounds; in this case aphotograph is used instead. We alsoneed to DNA barcode more than onespecimen for each species to allow forerrors and any variation betweenindividuals within the species. The levelof variation within the species should below however, as the idea behind DNAbarcoding is to use regions of DNA thatdiffer between species but which are thesame within a species. For our BarcodeWales project we aim to DNA barcode atleast three samples for each speciesusing the DNA barcode markers rbcLand matK.

Over the last three years we havesampled 4,272 plant specimens, 3,637from the National Museum Walesherbarium (NMW) and 635 freshlycollected from throughout Wales. Wehave 5,723 DNA barcodes, 3,304 forrbcL and 2,419 for matK. Of the 1,143species of Wales we have DNAbarcoded 98% using rbcL and 90% withrbcL and matK. Our first scientificpublication describing our results andprotocols will be available soon (de Vereet al., in press) and all of our DNAbarcodes, along with their associatedcollection information and scans of theirherbarium vouchers will be accessibleshortly on the Barcode of Life DataSystem in the Plants of Wales project.

bryophytes and at the National BotanicGarden of Wales, we are DNA barcodingthe native flowering plants and conifersof Wales, with our partners at theNational Museum Wales (Hollingsworthet al., 2011).

“ Botanic gardens are

increasingly using DNA barcoding

as an identification tool for plants

in their collections.”Barcode Wales

Wales has 1,143 native andarchaeophyte (species introduced before1500 AD) flowering plants and conifers,found within 455 genera, 95 families and34 orders. In order to create a referencedatabase of DNA barcodes for these, itis vital to start with correctly identifiedsource material. Taxonomist, Dr TimRich, from the National Museum Wales isresponsible for checking every speciesthat we DNA barcode. We haveconcentrated on using herbariumspecimens for DNA barcoding. Theherbaria of the world provide anincredibly valuable resource of plantspecies that have been collected andidentified by expert taxonomists. Wehave developed special protocols forextracting DNA from herbariumspecimens to make full use of thisresource.

For the resulting DNA barcodes to be ofmost use, it is very important that alongwith the DNA sequence there is a fullrecord of when, where and by whom theplant was collected. All users of the DNA


The herbarium at the National Museum of Wales.

Tephroseris integrifolia ssp. maritima.

The Barcode Wales project provides avaluable resource for researchers wantingto identify species using DNA-basedapproaches. Our DNA barcodes for Walesalso provide a stock of barcodes that canbe incorporated into other projects. The1,143 species of Wales represents 77% ofthe native flowering plants of the UK. Wehave just begun DNA barcoding the restof the UK flora, working with the RoyalBotanic Garden Edinburgh.

“ Once the native flora of the

UK is complete we will begin on

the non-native species.”Applications

The range of applications using plantDNA barcoding is as broad as ourimaginations, with some greatapplications already being developed.Ecological applications includeunderstanding below-ground biodiversityby DNA barcoding roots (Kesanakurti etal., 2011), reconstructing pastlandscapes using plant remains(Sonstebo et al., 2010) and identifyinginvasive species (Bleeker et al., 2008).DNA barcoding has been used to verifythe contents of plant products includingmedicinal plants (Chen et al., 2010),berries (Jaakola et al., 2010), olive oil(Kumar et al., 2011), tea (Stoeckle et al.,2011) and kitchen spices (De Mattia et

Many of our applications use ‘nextgeneration’ DNA sequencing as thisallows us to analyse samples containingmixtures of plant species. Our PhDstudent, Hannah Garbett, co-supervisedby Dr Tatiana Tatarinova (GlamorganUniversity) is developing bioinformatictools that will help to analyse these largeand complicated datasets. As well asusing our DNA barcodes for speciesidentification we are working with Prof.Pete Hollingsworth (Royal BotanicGarden Edinburgh) to create the firstcomplete national phylogeny of theflowering plants of the UK.

Public engagement

DNA barcoding is not only a resource forscientists; it is also an excellent way toengage people with their native flora andplant sciences research. At the NationalBotanic Garden of Wales we areparticularly interested in projects that linkarts and science. We have worked withbotanical artist, Emma Tuck, on acontemporary art exhibition andcommunity artist, Pod Clare, on aBarcode Wales mosaic created bycommunity groups from throughoutWales. We are currently working withProf. Andrea Liggins (SwanseaUniversity) on a photographic exhibitionto be shown in botanic gardens anduniversities throughout China on nativeWelsh plants and their DNA barcodes.

al., 2011). DNA sequences obtained forDNA barcoding have also been used tocreate phylogenetic trees forphylogenetic community ecologyresearch (Kress et al., 2009).

At the National Botanic Garden of Waleswe have started to develop applicationsthat use our DNA barcodes for Wales incollaboration with partners around theworld. We have worked with Dr SandraRonca (Aberystwyth University) and Prof.Mike Wilkinson (University of Adelaide)to track the movements of pollinators inthreatened habitats by DNA barcodingpollen found on their bodies. We areworking with Dr Joel Allainguillaume(University of the West of England) touse DNA barcoding to carry outecological surveys and Dr Neil Loader(Swansea University) on reconstructinglandscapes from plant remains in peatcores. We are also using our DNAbarcodes for human health in a projectwith Jenny Hawkins and Prof. Les Baillieof the Welsh School of Pharmacy (CardiffUniversity). For her PhD research, Jennyis collecting honey samples fromthroughout the UK and testing theirability to fight the hospital infectionsMRSA and Clostridium difficile. She willthen DNA barcode the honey to find outwhat plant species the bees visited tomake it. We hope to use this to pinpointactive phytochemicals donated by theplant species that contribute to thehoney’s anti-microbial properties.


Collecting specimens for DNA barcoding.

Barcode Wales is also a mechanism fortraining the next generation of plantscientists. The workforce assembling theDNA barcodes for the Barcode Walesand Barcode UK projects areundergraduate students who spend ayear at the Garden as part of theirdegree. Their work is supplemented withwork experience students from A-level topostgraduate who spend from twoweeks to a few months at the Garden.

The Barcode Wales project provides themost complete coverage of DNAbarcodes of any national flora, offering aplatform for a wide range of applicationswhere accurate species identification isrequired. It also provides a hub for multi-disciplinary research across the arts,sciences and social sciences and avehicle for training plant sciencestudents and volunteers. The DNAbarcodes and their associatedinformation are Open Access to make aresource available to everyone.

References

,Bleeker, W., Klausmeyer, S.,Peintinger, M., and Dienst, M. 2008.DNA sequences identify invasive alienCardamine at Lake Constance.Biological Conservation 141: 692-698.

,CBOL Plant Working Group. 2009.A DNA barcode for land plants.Proceedings of the National Academyof Sciences of the United States ofAmerica 106: 12794-12797.

,Chen, S., Yao, H., Han, J., Liu, C.,Song, J., Shi, L., Zhu, Y., Ma, X., Gao,T., Pang, X., Luo, K., Li, Y., Li, X., Jia,X., Lin, Y., and Leon, C. 2010.Validation of the ITS2 Region as aNovel DNA Barcode for IdentifyingMedicinal Plant Species. Plos One 5:e8613.

,De Mattia, F., Bruni, I., Galimberti, A.,Cattaneo, F., Casiraghi, M., and Labra,M. 2011. A comparative study ofdifferent DNA barcoding markers forthe identification of some members ofLamiacaea. Food ResearchInternational 44: 693-702.

, de Vere, N., Rich, T.C.G., Ford, C.R.,Trinder, S.A., Long, C., Moore, C.W.,Satterthwaite, D., Davies, H.,Allainguillaume, J., Ronca, S.,Tatarinova, T., Garbett, H., Walker, K.

Proceedings of the National Academyof Sciences of the United States ofAmerica 106: 18621-18626.

,Kumar, S., Kahlon, T., and Chaudhary,S. 2011. A rapid screening foradulterants in olive oil using DNAbarcodes. Food Chemistry 127: 1335-1341.

,Ratnasingham, S., and Hebert, P.D.N.2007. BOLD: The Barcode of Life DataSystem (www.barcodinglife.org).Molecular Ecology Notes 7: 355-364.

, Sonstebo, J.H., Gielly, L., Brysting, A.K.,Elven, R., Edwards, M., Haile, J.,Willerslev, E., Coissac, E., Rioux, D.,Sannier, J., Taberlet, P., and Brochmann,C. 2010. Using next-generationsequencing for molecular reconstructionof past Arctic vegetation and climate.Molecular Ecology Resources 10: 1009-1018.

, Stoeckle, M.Y., Gamble, C.C., Kirpekar,R., Young, G., Ahmed, S., and Little, D.P.2011. Commercial Teas Highlight PlantDNA Barcode Identification Successesand Obstacles. Sci. Rep. 1: 42.

Natasha de VereNational Botanic Gardenof WalesLlanarthne, Carmarthenshire,SA32 8HG, UKEmail: [email protected]

and Wilkinson, M.J. (in press) DNAbarcoding the native flowering plantsand conifers of Wales. Plos One.

,Hebert, P.D.N., Cywinska, A., Ball,S.L., and DeWaard, J.R. 2003.Biological identifications through DNAbarcodes. Proceedings of the RoyalSociety of London Series B-BiologicalSciences 270: 313-321.

,Hollingsworth, P.M., Graham, S.W.,and Little, D.P. 2011. Choosing andUsing a Plant DNA Barcode. Plos One6: e19254.

, Jaakola, L., Suokas, M., andHaggman, H. 2010. Novel approachesbased on DNA barcoding and high-resolution melting of amplicons forauthenticity analyses of berry species.Food Chemistry 123: 494-500.

,Kesanakurti, P.R., Fazekas, A.J.,Burgess, K.S., Percy, D.M.,Newmaster, S.G., Graham, S.W.,Barrett, S.C.H., Hajibabaei, M., andHusband, B.C. 2011. Spatial patternsof plant diversity below-ground asrevealed by DNA barcoding. MolecularEcology 20: 1289-1302.

,Kress, W.J., Erickson, D.L., AndrewJones, F., Swenson, N.G., Perez, R.,Sanjur, O., and Bermingham, E. 2009.Plant DNA barcodes and a communityphylogeny of a tropical forestdynamics plot in Panama.


Further informationNational Botanic Garden of Waleshttp://www.gardenofwales.org.uk/science/barcode-wales/Consortium for the Barcode of Life http://www.barcodeoflife.org/International Barcode of Life Initiative http://ibol.org/Barcode of Life Data System http://www.boldsystems.org4th International Barcode of Life Conference http://www.dnabarcodes2011.org

Emma Tuck’s Decode exhibition at NBGW.

Plants and the Red List

The IUCN Red List is well known tomany as the most authoritativesource of information on extinction

risk for the world’s organisms. The annualrelease highlights the familiar creatures:the polar bear, the orang-utan, the rhino,the gorilla - the celebrity species of theconservation world. And each year we arereminded again that many species areslipping toward extinction, usually as aresult of pressures from human activities.But when was the last time you remembera species of plant being mentioned? Alltoo often plants fall under the radar whenit comes to the Red List, although they arebeing assessed and they are asthreatened as the ‘better known’ groupssuch as mammals (see the Sampled RedList Index – Plants Under Pressure aglobal assessment 2010). So why is theresuch a shortfall? The sheer number ofspecies, in comparison to the number ofavailable scientists, is the main problem.

resources into practical conservationeffort if we don’t know where or what tofocus on? The good news is thatprogress is being made. Not only is rawinformation on plants becomingincreasingly available through datasharing platforms such as the GlobalBiodiversity Information Facility (GBIF),but automated and semi-automatedtools are now available to allowscientists and experts to harness thatdata to answer important questions like– how endangered is my species?


GeoCAT -AN OPEN SOURCE TOOL FOR RAPIDRED LIST ASSESSMENTS

Authors: Steven Bachman and Justin Moat

The combination of botanical collection dataand the latest web mapping technology isproviding better tools to support the workof conservation scientists. The RoyalBotanic Gardens, Kew have developedGeoCAT – the Geospatial ConservationAssessment Tool - to help ease andspeed up the process of Red Listassessment for plants.

There are as many as 380,000species of plants presently known andaround a thousand new species aredescribed as new to science every year1.There are more species in a single familyof plants such as grasses (Poaceae) thanthere are all known mammals (5,488). Withthat in mind it is no wonder that so faronly around 4% of the world’s flora havebeen assigned a category of threat on theglobal Red List. Although significantactivity on Red Listing for plants is takingplace around the world, often in botanicgardens, the sheer scale of the task isdaunting.

Despite attempts from the botanicalcommunity to accelerate the productionof Red List assessments, such as theambitious Target 2 of the Global Strategyfor Plant Conservation2 ‘an assessmentof conservation status of all known plantspecies’ we are still falling short. Theimplications of this are very significant.How can we even begin to focus our

“ Only around 4% of the

world’s plants have been

assessed for their conservation

status at the global level.”

1 http://www.ipni.org/stats.html2 http://www.plants2020.net/gspc-targets/

With these powerful analytic tools wecan more rapidly assess species andmore effectively prioritise conservationaction. With the development of toolssuch as GeoCAT, the target of assessingall species may just become moreachievable.

Introducing GeoCAT

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew haslong been associated with the Red Listprocess, being key players in thedevelopment of the original Red Databooks of endangered plants andcontinuing with major contributions ofplant assessments to the present dayRed List. The Geographical InformationSystems (GIS) Unit at Kew has a morespecific interest in the application of GIStechniques for Red List assessment, inparticular the geographic components ofan assessment. Innovations within thefield of GIS over the last few decadeshave allowed for the first time theproduction of tools to aid Red Listassessment such as the CAT(Conservation Assessment Tools)project3. Released in 2007, CAT is anextension to the ArcView GIS softwaresystem and allows automatic calculationof measures used in Red Listassessment. With the recent explosion ofweb mapping innovations such asGoogle Earth and Google Maps it wasclear that these conservation toolsneeded to be brought into this new era,which led to the development of GeoCAT.

Geographic range measuresused in the Red List

One aspect of Red Listing that has beenparticularly challenging so far is thecalculation of geospatial measurementsincluded in the criteria – in other wordscriteria related to the geography of aspecies. Geospatial aspects of the RedList criteria mostly relate to Criterion B -Geographic Range, but also appear aselements throughout the othercategories A – D. Two different measuresof geographic range: extent of

GeoCAT is a rapid assessment tool thatutilises primary plant occurrence data toproduce measurements relating to thegeographic range of a species. Theseare then compared with the IUCN RedList categories and criteria and provideevidence to support a full Red Listassessment. It is important to note that itis an expert driven system i.e. it isassumed that the user of the tool hasgood knowledge of the species beingassessed as well as a thoroughunderstanding of the Red List categoriesand criteria (IUCN 2001).


Screenshot from GeoCAT – illustrating multiple data sources, and the metadata window allowing you to viewthe underlying data for each point.

Screenshot of extent of occurrence (EOO) and area of occupancy (AOO) analysis. When the analysis isenabled the results are displayed showing area in km2 and corresponding Red List category.

3 http://www.kew.org/science-research-data/kew-in-depth/gis/resources-and-publications/tools/cat/

GeoCAT (accessible at this URL:http://geocat.kew.org/) is a web based tooldeveloped through a collaboration of the RoyalBotanic Gardens, Kew, IUCN and ViBRANT thatsupports the Red Listing process. If you want aquick way to find out more you can watch the videohere: http://vimeo.com/22739331.The GeoCAT home page - http://geocat.kew.org/.

occurrence (EOO) and area ofoccupancy (AOO) are used in the RedList criteria. Extent of occurrence (EOO)is a measure of the geographic rangesize of a species. IUCN guidelinessuggest a minimum convex polygon(MCP) can be used to calculate thisvalue. A MCP is defined as the smallestpolygon in which no internal angleexceeds 180˚ and contains all sites ofoccurrence. This value represents thespread of risk for a species such thatspecies with a large extent will be morerobust to threatening processes. Analternative approach for depicting aspecies range is to show the area wherea species occurs or area of occupancy(AOO). A simple way to measure thisvalue is to overlay the distribution with agrid and sum the area of square gridcells the species occupies

How it works - calculatinggeographic range of species forRed List assessments

GeoCAT is driven by primary occurrencedata. For hundreds of years botanistshave been travelling to the ends of theearth to take cuttings from plants asscientific specimens. Herbariumspecimens are verifiable records thatshow where and when a particularspecies was collected. By combiningthese records at the species level weimmediately have an indication of thegeographic range of a species and it isthis data that GeoCAT analyses todetermine the two measures of extent ofoccurrence (EOO) and area of occupancy(AOO). A benefit of GeoCAT is that aswell as data being provided by the usere.g. from a database of their ownspecimens, it can also be imported fromexisting online sources such as GBIF andFlickr. The images in Flickr need to belabelled with the species name and‘geotagged’ or ‘georeferenced’ i.e.assigned a latitude and longitude co-ordinate so we know where it was taken.

The data can be entered in three ways:

• Import from online sources - existingsources of primary data can bequeried. By adding a search term e.g.a scientific name or a common nameyou can query two sources of onlinedata: GBIF and Flickr. Any matchingrecord that has been georeferencedcan be added directly to the mapeditor.

assessment. Perhaps then we will seeplants in the spotlight for the next editionof the Red List.

References

,Bachman, S., Moat, J., Hill, A.W.,de la Torre, J. and Scott, B. 2011.Supporting Red List threatassessments with GeoCAT: geospatialconservation assessment tool.ZooKeys 150: 117–126 doi:10.3897/zookeys.150.210

,Brummitt, N., Bachman, S.P. andMoat, J. 2008. Using the Red List asa barometer for plant diversity.Endangered Species Research.doi: 10.3354/esr0013

, IUCN. 2001. IUCN Red List Categoriesand Criteria: Version 3.1. IUCNSpecies Survival Commission. IUCN,Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge,UK: 30 p

, Plants under pressure a globalassessment. The first report of theIUCN Sampled Red List Index forPlants. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,UK. 2010http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/search-rescue/mapping-plants/plants-at-risk/index.htm

Steve Bachman and Justin MoatRoyal Botanic Gardens Kew,Richmond,SurreyTW9 3AB,UKEmail: [email protected]

• Upload your own data - whereoccurrence data has already beengathered, for example, in a specimendatabase or spreadsheet, it ispossible to import this data directly tothe map editor. Data simply needs tobe converted to comma separatedvalues format following a standardstructure.

• Manual add - you may have specificknowledge regarding the distributionof a species. The user can add pointsdirectly to the map with a single click.

With data on the map the user can thenedit by adjusting points, removing themand by examining the original data e.g.inspecting a Flickr image to see if it reallyis the species it is labelled as. From here,at the click of a button the analysis canbe enabled. Based on the points on themap, the extent of occurrence (EOO) andarea of occupancy (AOO) values areinstantly calculated and the values arecompared with the thresholds set in theIUCN Criteria. For example if the extentis less than 5,000 km2 then it meets thethreshold for the Endangered (EN)category. From here a simple report canbe generated and the data can be savedor exported to other formats such asKML for visualisation in other packagessuch as Google Earth. As mentionedpreviously it should be noted that thisdoes not represent a full Red Listassessment, it provides evidence thatfulfils part of the criteria.

Impact and benefits

GeoCAT is a good example of theinnovative work presently being carriedout in botanic gardens, in this case todirectly support plant conservation.Specifically GeoCAT provides thepotential to speed up the Red Listingprocess for plants and offers hope thatglobal targets such as the GlobalStrategy for Plant Conservation may bereached. By utilising existing data it is anevidence based approach that can beused immediately as much occurrencedata is already available. The tool isopen and free to use so there are norestrictions in terms of accessibility asidefrom a connection to the internet. Itprovides a platform that can be built onin the future to make other aspects ofthe Red List criteria automated. In short,it could be the first step towards a fullyautomated data driven Red List


Introduction

Off the main public path of theCincinnati Zoo & BotanicalGarden, in the corner of the park,

one can find the Carl H. Lindner FamilyCenter for Conservation and Research ofEndangered Wildlife (CREW). From thissmall, two-story building, plant andanimal research is being conducted thatis impacting rare species across thecountry, and beyond. CREW’s PlantResearch Division (PRD)’s particularfocus is using in vitro (tissue culture)methods for propagating and preservingendangered plants. The work is directed

(Sarasan, et al., 2006). The PRDcollaborates with a number of otherinstitutions, including botanical gardensin the Center for Plant Conservationnetwork (Center for Plant Conservation2012), government agencies, NGOs, andresearch stations. These institutionsoften identify plants for which in vitroapproaches could be useful and thenprovide the starting material (seeds orshoot tips) to CREW for propagation.

“ Over 100 botanic gardens

around the world have tissue

culture and micropropagation

facilities.”(BGCI GardenSearch database, 2012)

The Autumn buttercup (Ranunculusaestivalis) is one such species, knownfrom one site in south central Utah in theSevier River Valley. When it becameobvious that the population wasdeclining, The Nature Conservancybought the property in order to protect

primarily at species for which traditionalapproaches are not adequate. Thus,when seeds are few and cuttings are notworkable, tissue culture can provide analternative method for propagation.When seeds are lacking or are“recalcitrant” (sensitive to the dryingnecessary for traditional seed-banking),freezing tissues from in vitro cultures canbe an additional tool for banking valuablegenetic material from rare taxa. The PRDhas developed protocols for the in vitropropagation and/or preservation of over50 rare species, providing materials forrestoration projects and tissues for long-term storage in liquid nitrogen in CREW’sCryoBioBank.

Propagation for restoration

Propagation is a key element inproviding plants for recovery projects.For many endangered species,traditional propagation by seed orcuttings can meet propagation needs,but for species with few or no seeds orfew individuals, plant tissue culture canbe used to supplement these methods


FROM FREEZING TO THE FIELD—IN VITRO METHODS ASSISTING PLANT CONSERVATION

Author: Valerie Pence

When seeds are few and cuttings difficult, tissue culturecan provide an alternative conservation pathway

Above: The rockhouse habitat that is home to the Cumberland sandwort experimental population (Valerie Pence)Left: A storage tank in CREW’s CryoBioBank (CREW).

the plant. Over the past decade, fiveorganizations, including CREW, TheArboretum at Flagstaff, The NatureConservancy, U.S. Fish & WildlifeService, and Utah State University, havecome together in a partnership to workon studying and restoring this species(Pence et al., 2008). A small number ofseeds were collected at the site and sentto CREW where they were germinatedin vitro, and shoot propagating cultures

and northern Tennessee. Like theAutumn buttercup, CREW initiatedseveral genetically different tissueculture lines from seeds that had beencollected by researchers at the MissouriBotanical Garden. Shoots wereproduced, rooted, and plants transferredback to soil.

In order to demonstrate the feasibility ofusing tissue culture propagated plantsfor the recovery of this species, anexperimental out-planting was made at arockhouse site in southern Kentucky incollaboration with the U.S. ForestService. Plants were planted in differentareas of the rockhouse, in order toevaluate the microhabitats within therockhouse, which differed in light andmoisture levels. Over the course of sixyears, plants at several of the micrositeshave grown and reproduced well,indicating the viability of these methods,should they be needed to help preservethe species in the future. A geneticstudy is also underway to analyze thegenetic diversity of this new,experimental population.

By combining the laboratory strengths ofCREW with the field expertise ofcollaborators in botanical gardens,governmental agencies, and non-profitorganizations, the work at CREW isbeing integrated into conservationefforts for species recovery anddemonstrating that tissue culturepropagation can be an important tool forconservation and restoration.

were initiated from each seedling. Aswith most tissue culture systems, theshoots can be maintained and multipliedin culture by dividing and sub-culturingthe shoots onto fresh medium every 6-8weeks. By changing the components ofthe medium, the shoots can bestimulated to form roots, and oncerooted, the shoots are then ready to bemoved back into soil. This is a clonalmethod of propagation, but each geneticline initiated from a separate seed ismaintained separately, creating acollection of genetically distinct lines intissue culture.

When the plants were rooted, they weresent to the Arboretum at Flagstaff, wherethey were carefully removed from theirculture tubes and acclimatized to soiland to real-life conditions in agreenhouse. At that point they wereready to face life out in the wild. In 2007,a group of buttercups, originallypropagated at CREW, was planted backout at the Sevier Preserve, and, whilenone of the plants from the originalpopulation have been seen in recentyears, a group of the CREW-propagatedplants are surviving and flowering.

Another such species is the Cumberlandsandwort (Minuartia cumberlandensis), asmall plant that grows only in sandstonerockhouse habitats in the Daniel BooneNational Forest of southern Kentucky


Todsen’s pennyroyal growing at White SandsMissile Base (Doug Winget).

Cumberland sandwort flowering in culture(Valerie Pence).

The Autumn buttercup (Valerie Pence).

Resources for the Future

In a similar fashion, the PRD is utilizing invitro methods to provide tissues forlong-term liquid nitrogen storage, whenseed banking is not a workable optionfor a species (Engelmann, 2004). Thiswork centers on the CryoBioBank (CBB),CREW’s liquid nitrogen storage facility.The plant collections, or “FrozenGarden” within the CryoBioBank includeseeds, spores, and tissues of about 150plant species in four distinct collections,all stored at -196oC (-320oF).

Seeds and spores are prepared forfreezing by simple drying, but tissues,such as shoot tips and embryos, requiremore elaborate procedures.Concentrated solutions of sugar and otherchemicals, known as cryoprotectants,remove water from the tissues and protectthe cells from damage during the freezingand thawing processes. The extremelylow temperatures of liquid nitrogenprovide stability for the tissues,maintaining them in a state of suspendedanimation for decades.

The CryoBioBanks's Frozen Garden ismade up of four distinct collections.The Regional Seed Bank includes seeds

banking (Pence, 2011). For these plants,banking tissues from in vitro cultures inliquid nitrogen can provide an alternativemethod for long-term germplasmstorage. At CREW, multiple genotypes ofseveral species are being collected, putinto culture, and then cryopreserved, inorder to maintain a back-up to thegenetic diversity of these species,should they decline or be lost in the wild.These include three endangeredpawpaws endemic to Florida, the Four-petal pawpaw (Asimina tetramera),

of state and federally endangeredspecies from Kentucky, Indiana, andOhio, including such species as Short’sgoldenrod (Solidago shortii) and Runningbuffalo clover (Trifolium stoloniferum).Because not all endangered plants areseed plants, there is a Pteridophyte(Fern) Bank and a Bryophyte (Moss)Bank, which contain spores, as well astissues of gametophytes andsporophytes. The Endangered PlantTissue Bank contains samples of tissuesfrom in vitro cultures of endangeredplants that are grown at CREW. Materialis continually added to the collection,and some samples are over 20 years old.Recently, samples of pollen from theAmerican chestnut (Castanea dentata)were shown to be viable after 15 years ofstorage in liquid nitrogen, while shoottips of the Cumberland sandwort wererecovered after 10 years in liquidnitrogen.

Perhaps one of the most important usesof the CryoBioBank is to preservetissues from endangered species that fallinto the category of “exceptional”species. These are plants that eitherproduce few or no seeds, or their seedsare sensitive to drying and cannot be putthrough the rigors of normal seed-


The small Cumberland sandwort flower(Brian Jorg).

A second planting of CREW propagated Autumn buttercups took place in 2010 in Utah (Valerie Pence).

Beautiful pawpaw (Deeringothamnuspulchellus), and Rugel's pawpaw(Deeringothamnus rugelii), all withdesiccation-sensitive seeds (Pence,2006). Samples from a species from themountains of New Mexico, Todsen'spennyroyal (Hedeoma todsenii), whichproduces no seeds, are being collected,cryopreserved, and also analyzedgenetically at CREW to document thediversity of the population (Pence et al.,2009). There appears to be somediversity, even though no seedproduction has been documented in thisspecies, suggesting that reproductivedeficiency is a recent development inthis species. Todsen’s pennyroyal isfound on the grounds of White SandsMissile Base, and this work has beenfunded, in part, by a grant from the U.S.Army. Again, partnerships with thoseworking in the field have been animportant part of this work.

Tissue banking of exceptional species,as well as the in vitro propagation ofplants for reintroduction, supports Target8 of the Global Strategy for PlantConservation (Botanic GardensConservation International, 2011), whichsets goals for ex situ conservation andrestoration. While these methods aremore labor intensive and, thus, moreexpensive than traditional methods, theydo provide tools for dealing withexceptional endangered species, and formaintaining precious plant diversity intothe future.

References

,Botanic Gardens ConservationInternational. Plants 2010. The GlobalPartnership for Plant Conservation.Supporting the worldwideimplementation of the Global Strategyfor Plant Conservation.http://www.bgci.org/files/Worldwide/GSPC/globalstrategyeng.pdf Cited 12Nov 2011.

,Center for Plant Conservation. 2012.Participating Institutions.http://www.centerforplantconservation.org/ParticipatingInstitutions/ParticipatingInstitutions.asp. Cited Jan 2012.

, Engelmann, F. 2004. Plantcryopreservation: Progress andprospects. In Vitro Cellular andDevelopmental Biology Plant 40: 427-433.

, Sarasan, V., Cripps, R., Ramsay, M.M., Atherton, C., McMichen, M.,Prendergast, G., and Rowntree, J. K.2006. Conservation in vitro ofthreatened plants--progress in thepast decade. In Vitro Cell. Dev. Biol.--Plant 42: 206-214.

Valerie PenceCenter for Conservation andResearch of EndangeredWildlife (CREW)Cincinnati Zoo & BotanicalGarden3400 Vine StreetCincinnati, OH 45220USAEmail: [email protected]

, Pence, V.C. 2006. Propagating andpreserving pawpaws (and other rarespecies) from Florida. The Palmetto23 4: 8-11.

, Pence, V.C. 2011. The possibilitiesand challenges of in vitro methods forconservation. Kew Bulletin 65: 539-547.

, Pence, V.C., Murray, S., Whitham, L.,Cloward, D., Barnes, H. and VanBuren, R. 2008. Supplementation ofthe autumn buttercup population inUtah, USA, using in vitro propagatedplants. In: Global Re-introductionPerspectives. Soorae PS, ed.,IUCN/SSC Re-introduction SpecialistGroup, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Pp. 239-243.

, Pence, V.C., Winget, G.D., Lindsey,K.L., Plair, B.L. and Charls, S.M. 2009.In vitro propagation, cryopreservation,and genetic analysis of theendangered Hedeoma todsenii(Lamiaceae). Madrono 56: 221-228.


Collecting Todsen’s pennyroyal shoots at White Sands for genetic analysis and cryostorage (Doug Winget).

propagated. This includes local climaticconditions, watering requirements, soiltypes, sun or shade conditions, withsuccess and failures recorded from thebeginning of this project.

Field data helps to determine growingconditions for plants. Research and fieldwork is a core function of the botanicgarden, with over 200 field trips havingbeen undertaken in the last 6 years toexplore the landscapes of Oman andcollect seeds and data on plantdistribution, vegetation ecology,environmental conditions, andconservation status. Oman BotanicGarden uses BGBASE to enter data on a

The Oman Botanic Garden,focusing on Oman’s native flora,is the first of its kind in the Middle

East region. The Garden which is 420hain extent is not far from Muscat thecapital of Oman. It aims for excellence inbotanical research, education andinterpretation, cultivation and display ofthe unique flora of Oman. A project ofthis magnitude obviously has itschallenges, but the Living CollectionsDepartment faces more tests than usual.There are a total of 26 dedicatedpersons working in the living collectionsdepartment – of this, 9 are Universitygraduates.

The garden aims to house all 1,200native, as well as the traditionallycultivated Omani plant species within itscollections, with the vast majorityhoused in the living collections. Prior tothe formation of Oman Botanic Gardenin 2006, only very few of these nativespecies had ever been propagated, andgrown ex situ. Eventually all the nativeflora will be grown in speciallyconstructed habitats that resemble thewild area the plants came from. Whilethe habitats are constructed, the plantsare cultivated in the nursery, ready to beplanted out once the hard landscapedconstruction has been completed.

All relevant information about cultivatingthe plants is collected in the field sowhen the plant material is back in thegarden the plants can be successfully


EXCITING HORTICULTURALCHALLENGES AT THE OMAN BOTANIC GARDEN

Authors: Ian Oliver, Khalid Al-Farsi, Abdullah Al-Hosni, Salim Al-Makmari, Sarah Kneebone

The Oman Botanic Garden aims to house all 1,200native, as well as the traditionally cultivated Omaniplant species within its collections

Team members from the Oman Botanic Garden ona field trip in the Dhofar region of southern Oman(Ian Oliver).

Salim Al Makhmari harvesting potential cuttingmaterial of a native tree Lannea malifolia in thesouthern Oman coastal zone in Dhofar (Ian Oliver).

field computer during trips, to ensurethat data is accurately recorded. Eachnew species collected in the field isawarded its own unique accessionnumber which remains with that plantthroughout its lifetime. Seeds are dried,cleaned and counted in preparation forpropagation, while cuttings and plantsare processed as soon as possible bythe horticultural team. All propagationdata is also entered into BGBASE sothat cultivation methods can be analysedfor success and repeated.

“ Cultivation protocols are

developed based on detailed

field observations.”The nursery has state-of-the-art facilitiesincluding shade houses (9000 m2),outside hardening-off areas (3000 m2),4 polytunnels (4000 m2), 2 glasshouses(2600 m2), a propagation house (700 m2),nursery offices, staff canteen and ameeting room.

The nursery uses a number of technicalaids to lessen its impact on theenvironment. For example, asophisticated computerized controlsystem manages the whole nurseryoperation, by continuously monitoringoutside conditions and adapting thewater efficient cooling systems withinthe polytunnels and glasshouses toensure a growing environment that isbeneficial to the plants.Oman is primarily an arid country soefficient water use is vital. Acombination of automated irrigation

The botanic garden’s focus is onsustainable development, and thereforebasic principles of sustainability areimplemented to minimise damage to theenvironment and depletion of naturalresources.

In order to reduce the carbon footprint,the use of peat, a non-renewablehorticultural product, is to be radicallyreduced. Since the start of the project,as more data about plant requirementshas been established, the dependenceon imported peats has been reduced by50%; the peat has been replaced withlocal soils, sharp sand and gravel.At present there are very few peatalternatives available in Oman. In thefuture, however, compost will be locallysourced using biodegradable greenwaste.

New cutting media have been developedthat suit the soil conditions in the areasfrom where these plants originate.

Plant health is important in the fightagainst pests and diseases. Chemical useis minimised and is based on low-toxicity.The use of strong organo-phosphates isnot permitted on the site. Instead moreenvironmentally friendly pesticides, likeIndian neem cakes (Azadirachta indica)and lemon and chilli grass extracts, areused. In the future it is hoped thatbiological control agents will be used toeffectively combat all pests and diseases.

Integrated pest management helpsreduce pesticide use. Good hygiene is ofparamount importance to good planthealth. Infestation levels are continuouslymonitored. Different coloured insect stickytraps help to monitor and remove pests.

drippers, ebb and flow matting andmanual watering systems ensuresirrigation is targeted exactly where it isneeded. To reduce water usage evenmore, the team has tested a range ofwater-holding soil additive products.Sprinkling the water-holding soil additiveproducts on the surface of somemedium sized potted trees (Prosopiscineraria) has reduced their dependenceon water by as much as 40% during thehot summer months.

“ Oman’s plants have

attracted healers, crafts people,

explorers and botanists for over

2,000 years. The country is

home to over 1,200 species of

plants, with 80 species found

nowhere else in the world.”


Salim Al Hinai, horticultural assistant, moving a recently large potted container plant -150 litre air pot in thenursery (Ian Oliver).

Young baobabs (Adansonia digitata) standing on wooden pallets that vary from 6 and 4 years that weregrown from seed in air pots housed in the nursery (Ian Oliver).

Air pots have had a positive impact ongrowth rates and longer term survival oflarge trees and shrubs. This innovativeproduct comes in perforated pre-moulded sheets of recycled polyvinyl,ready for assembly on-site. Theperforations allow for air-pruning soprotruding roots are effectively dried outwhen they come into contact with theoutside environment. The air flow alsoallows the roots to stay cooler, which isvital when temperatures in the nurserycan exceed 49°C during the summer.Sizes used are 45 litres, 150 litres, 600litres and 1000 litres. The youngbaobabs (Adansonia digitata), arecultivated in air pots containing severalhundred litres of specially preparedgrowing mixtures. Baobabs in Oman caneventually reach a height of 15 meters. Inthe Middle East Baobabs are unique tosouthern Oman and a few areas justacross the border in Yemen. Manytranslocated trees are potted up in airpots holding 1000 – 1500 litres ofgrowing medium.

“ Over 20% of Oman’s plants

are threatened through

environmental issues such as

over-grazing, development and

habitat destruction.”Translocation and rescue of mature treesfrom degraded or disturbed sites isongoing. The team works in conjunctionwith the Ministry of Transport and visits

largest trees are 5m tall, for example oneJuniperus excelsa which is severalhundred years old, and two Oleaeuropaea. A large desert rose, Adeniumobesum measuring over 3m in height,has also been rescued.

It is essential that climate controlledshade houses are provided for the plantsas without them they would be stuntedor die. Plants respond best to 50%shade. Some of the plants will eventuallyhave to be hardened off so that they canbe planted outside in the harsh desertconditions.

Through the use of new products andexperimental horticultural techniques,the nursery now houses 100,000 plantsand approximately 360 species and isthe largest documented collection ofArabian plants in the world.

Ian Oliver,Khalid Al-Farsi,Abdullah Al-Hosni,Salim Al-Makmari,Sarah Kneebone

Oman Botanic GardenDiwan of Royal Court,P.O. Box 808, Muscat 122,Sultanate of OmanEmail: [email protected]

road construction projects, waterpipeline sites etc. to identify large treesfor rescuing. Large trucks andconstruction machinery are used toexcavate mature specimens that wouldotherwise be destroyed. The survival rateis about 60%. As much care as possibleis taken when transporting these largetree specimens, for example bywrapping the roots in geotextile clothduring transportation back to the nurseryin Muscat where they are immediatelyplanted into large air pots. Some of the


A large rescued Olea europaea being loaded into a pick-up ready for transportation back to the Oman BotanicGarden (Abdullah Al-Hosni).

Khalid Al-Farsi, nursery production supervisor, standing next to a baobab in the Dhofar province of Oman.The tree will be translocated to the garden in the near future (Ian Oliver).

Introduction

Climate change is having aconsiderable impact on wild plantspecies, with declines in

populations and distributions shiftstowards the poles and higher elevationsbeing reported by scientists. One of themost alarming estimates paints a grimpicture of more than half of the European

With the combined effects of climatechange and habitat degradation takingits toll on biodiversity, it seems that wecan no longer focus on trying to reversethe trends. Instead, we need to startworking to mitigate the negative effects.In Europe, for example, the progressionof climate change will mean that morethan half of the species in existingprotected areas will be subject to

flora becoming endangered by the year2080 due to climate change (Thuiller etal., 2005). However, it is not onlybiodiversity that is experiencing thepressures brought about by suchchanges. Conservation actors, includingbotanic gardens, are being forced to re-evaluate the suitability and effectivenessof their conservation approaches andmay need to consider novel strategies.


THE ASSISTED MIGRATION DEBATE –BOTANIC GARDENS TO THE RESCUE?

Author: Maria Hällfors, Elina Vaara & Susanna Lehvävirta

Conservation actors are being forced tore-evaluate the suitability and effectiveness oftheir conservation approaches in the face ofclimate change. With the rapidly emerging needfor a better understanding of assisted migration,botanic gardens now have an opportunity toprovide society with unique expertise.

Setting up the trial in Oulu BG (Maria Hällfors).

unfavourable conditions (Araujo et al.,2011). Thus, we need to become moreproactive in species conservation.Perhaps the most controversial proposalthus far is moving species beyond theirhistoric natural ranges, a strategy oftencalled assisted migration, assistedcolonization or managed relocation.Botanic gardens, with their expertise andresources, could play an important rolein investigating the possibilities ofcarrying out assisted migration in asustainable way.

In this article, we aim to highlight theresponsibility, skills and opportunitiesthat BGs have in this emerging field. Wewill briefly review the basic ideas behindassisted migration and describe a multi-disciplinary research project that wasinitiated at the Botany Unit of the FinnishMuseum of Natural History in 2011.

Assisted migration challengesthe traditional conservation view

When the environment changes aspecies has two options. It can adapt orit can move to more favourable areas.Species that do not manage to do eitherwill go extinct. We may not be able tohelp species adapt to new habitatrequirements nor can we entirely rely onconventional conservation methods likein situ conservation in protected areas toaccommodate species in a changing

There are, however, many legalrestrictions on the movement of speciesin both domestic and international laws.Some of these laws restrict theintentional movement of the speciesitself, while others are designated toprotect the areas to which species maybe transferred. In an era of climatechange, when assisted migration mayneed to be considered, these regulationsmay actually hinder the conservation ofthe world’s biodiversity, although theiroriginal intent was to enable it.

The majority of current internationalnature conservation treaties (e.g.,Convention on Biological Diversity,Convention on International Trade inEndangered Species) were developedbefore a broad understanding of theimpacts of climate change on speciesconservation had been reached.Therefore, research findings and newmethods developed concerning assistedmigration may require a re-considerationof current conservation legislation.Indeed, completely new comprehensiveregulation mechanisms may need to bedeveloped. This would help to ensure

world. However, we could adapt ourthinking and conservation strategies tofind new ways to save biodiversity.Ex situ conservation offers a valuabletool for preserving threatened species(Pritchard & Harrop, 2010). Although onits own it is not a sustainable solution forconservation, it does provide anessential step in the process ofintroducing species back into the wild.This could include introducing speciesinto habitats outside their natural range,if their original habitat is no longerclimatically suitable – assisted migration.

Active discussions on assisted migrationhave been taking place since around2005. Moving species to novel areasraises not only ecological, but alsojudicial, ethical and economicalchallenges. Which species should wemove and when? How can we ensurethat the species do not becomeinvasive? How much should we interferewith nature, and is it even legal? Andfinally, how much would this cost? It isessential to develop joint researchprogrammes that include ecological,legal, and ethical perspectives in theinvestigation of assisted migration.

Plant conservation prohibitedby law

Currently there are few laws thatunambiguously regulate assistedmigration as a conservation strategy.


Svanhovd BG in northern Norway, where part of the Siberian primrose trial was set up (Marko Hyvärinen).

Individuals of Siberian primrose ready to be plantedin the trial plots (Marko Hyvärinen).

that each assisted migration interventionand trial is duly coordinated and safelyimplemented. However, it must also berecognised that ecologicalcircumstances, such as climaticconditions and the level of habitatfragmentation, vary between nations.Hence, species conservation regulationswhich suit one nation, may not besuitable for another.

Besides the need to inform the scientificand conservation communities,professionally produced educationalmaterials and expert advice for thepublic and local decision-makers areimportant. Already at least one case ofassisted migration, uncontrolled by theauthorities, has been initiated, as the“Torreya Guardians” continue to movethe threatened Torreya taxifolia furthernorth in the USA.

Botanic gardens have invaluableexpertise and experience

Botanic gardens have a long tradition ofgrowing plants in locations beyond theirnatural distribution. Thus they haveample experience to investigate theeffect of macroclimatic factors onspecies. Translocation trials conducted

ecological aspects. To begin with, aconceptual analysis is necessary, as thedebate and the terminology are stillevolving. The first translocation trialbetween botanic gardens has beenstarted and an assessment of the needfor assisted migration in theconservation of Finnish species isunderway.

The key question in the analysis of theregulations that concern assistedmigration is whether we need newguidelines to enable its execution. Theregulations should be compatible withnature conservation legislation at large,but also fair and just within society.Through comparing the results of thelegislative analysis with currentecological knowledge, we will recognisethe best model for regulation of assistedmigration and present it for introductioninto the Finnish legal order.

The invasive species problem andethical questions are next in line, and inthe near future we hope to be lookinginto aspects of population genetics,economics, and the social acceptabilityof using assisted migration as aconservation strategy. The uniqueness ofthe project lies in the multi-disciplinaryapproach that allows a wide-angledexamination of the problem. We will alsocooperate with other institutionsinvolved in conservation in order toinclude the knowledge held by theseorganisations.

under controlled conditions can offervaluable information on the possibilitiesof moving species to new locations.

Botanic gardens are also lead players inthe field of ex situ conservation andspecies reintroduction. While livingcollections provide experience of speciesrequirements, all kinds of ex situcollections may offer an important sourceof knowledge and plant material for boththe research and practical actionsrequired for assisted migration projects.This is especially true for species that areextinct or extremely rare.

Moreover, being highly involved ininvasive species management, botanicgardens also hold knowledge and shareinformation on invasion biology, a keyquestion to be addressed whenconsidering moving species to novelareas. Furthermore, apart from offeringvaluable information for evaluatingspecies’ current and future climaticranges, herbarium records along withspecies distribution databases can alsobe used to predict invasion risks (Aikio etal., 2009).

New openings for botanicgarden conservation - theHelsinki example

The Assisted Migration research projectat the Botany Unit of the FinnishMuseum of Natural History started in2011 with an analysis of the legal and


“The Flood – wet to the skin” was one of the six environmental art works exhibited in Kumpula BG duringthe summer of 2009. They were produced in collaborating of students of art and science during anenvironmental art course called “Growing season”. In 2012 a similar course, “Reclaimed territories”,will be organized focusing on, e.g., assisted migration and BGs (Mikko Heikkinen).

A translocation trial of the Siberian primrosebeing set up at Svanhovd BG in northern Norway(Marko Hyvärinen).

Translocation trial of Siberianprimrose

The most southern variety of thethreatened Siberian primrose (Primulanutans var. jokelae) grows on the shoresof the Bothnian Bay. Climate change maythreaten this species and the next morenorthern suitable habitat for this varietymay be by the shores of the Arctic Sea,500 km north of its current range. Thus,the variety may need to be assisted in itsmigration when climate changes.

In a translocation experiment we arestudying the success of the species atthree climatically different sites: theUniversity of Oulu Botanic Garden,Finland; University of Helsinki BotanicGarden, Finland; and Svanhovd BotanicGarden, Norway. Through the trial wecan compare the effect that climate inthese three areas has on the Siberianprimrose and find out whethermacroclimatic factors are decisive forthe viability of the species. From this wecan extrapolate whether the southernvariety could already grow on the shoresof the Arctic Sea and whether a warmerclimate affects it negatively. Theexperiment, conducted with the help ofthe botanic garden network will thus giveus insights into the need andpossibilities for assisting the Siberianprimrose in its migration under achanging climate.

Multiple roles for botanicgardens in the development ofassisted migration

With the rapidly emerging need for abetter understanding of assistedmigration, botanic gardens now have anopportunity to provide society with

As botanic gardens are institutionsconnecting research, conservation, andeducation they are well suited forinnovative research openings bringingtogether stakeholders, knowledgeproducers, and end-users from variousdisciplines as well as society at large. Inthis role of linking different sectors, theycan play an important role in enhancingthe debate on controversial subjects,such as assisted migration, and push theboundaries of their traditional fields ofexpertise.

References

, Aikio, S., Duncan, R.P. and Hulme, P.E.2009: Lag-phases in alien plantinvasions: separating the facts fromthe artefacts. Oikos 119: 370-378

, Araújo,M.B., Alagador, D., Cabeza, M.,Nogués-Bravo, D. and Thuiller, W.2011. Climate change threatensEuropean conservation areas. EcologyLetters 14: 484-492.

, Pritchard, D. J. and Harrop, S. R.2010. A re-evaluation of the role of exsitu conservation in the face of climatechange. BGjournal 7(1).http://www.bgci.org/resources/article/0632/

, Thuiller, W., Lavorel, S., Araújo, M.B.,Sykes, M.T. and Prentice, I.C.. 2005:Climate change threats to plantdiversity in Europe. PNAS 102: 8245-8250.

Maria Hällfors, Elina Vaara &Susanna LehvävirtaBotany UnitFinnish Museum of NaturalHistoryP.O. Box 44 (Jyrängöntie 2)FI-00014 University of HelsinkiFinlandEmail: [email protected]

unique expertise. Botanic gardens can,for example, collect and disseminateinformation about the criteria and bestpractices concerning assisted migration;give expert advice concerning theecological requirements of focal species;provide plant material and develop seedand ex situ collections to support thestudy and application of assistedmigration; offer testing grounds forspecies’ reactions to different climaticconditions; and evaluate risks ofinvasiveness. Furthermore, theinternational network of botanic gardenscan prove essential, as future (assisted)migration routes do not necessarilyrespect national borders. Hence,international assisted migration researchinitiatives would provide a strongplatform for external funding.

Botanic gardens also routinelycommunicate information through theirnetworks and public educationprogrammes and the idea of assistedmigration could be disseminated invarious ways. As an example, theUniversity of Helsinki participates in theHelsinki World Design Capital Year 2012and the assisted migration researchproject is part of the University’scontribution to designing the futurethrough scientific innovation. Togetherwith other research initiatives concernedwith climate change, we will unite recentresearch results with art to creatediscussion within both the scientific andthe public community. One attempt is ascience and environmental art workshopfor university students, called ReclaimedTerritories that will be organised inKumpula Botanic Garden in spring 2012.The course culminates in an artexhibition that will be displayed duringthe summer.

24

The Siberian primrose (Primula nutans var. jokelae)may need to be assisted in its migration as climatechanges (Marko Hyvärinen).

Even though the winters in Helsinki can be quite cold, plants from more northern locations can be tested fortheir reaction to a warmer climate with shorter winters in Kumpula BG (Mikko Paartola).

When I tell teenage visitors toIreland’s National BotanicGardens (Glasnevin) that we have

a living plant that can catch, kill and eat asheep they are usually left speechless tryingto decide if I am telling the truth. Perhapseven readers of this article - who may bewell-versed gardeners or garden educatorswill be equally suspicious of this claim? Itdoes seem unlikely, but let me assure you itis perfectly true, and if you come toGlasnevin, and download one of our freeaudio tours to bring with you, you can seeand hear about it at first hand.

An outrageous mind-boggling story orheadline is vital or your message isn’tgoing to attract attention.

Last year the National Botanic Gardensof Ireland produced a series of 30 audioclips and launched these in a number offormats – as downloadable podcasts, asa mobile phone application (app) andlastly as a souvenir ‘in-hand guide’1.Mary Mulvihill, of Ingenious Ireland2, ascience writer and broadcaster,conceived the audio tours idea.

Mary is a broadcaster, a writer and astoryteller, and is passionate aboutsharing Ireland’s hidden heritage,especially its scientific brilliance andindustrial archaeology. She hadpreviously made a radio series about the

It is my contention that to be successful,modern digital media must have twovital elements – firstly it has to be simpleand preferably free, and secondly it mustbe intriguing, bizarre or outlandish.

“ The world of streaming

media, whether visual or audio,

must seize your attention or it

will be drowned by background

noise”


Dreaming ofSheep-eating plants

Author: Matthew Jebb

Modern digital media can enhance the botanic gardenvisitor experience

Mary Mulvihill, Matthew Jebb and Senator David Norris at the launch of the audio guides, April 2011 (National Botanic Gardens)

work of the botanic garden’s herbariumfor the national radio broadcaster, RaidióTeilifís Éireann (RTE) in 2007 (Washed,Pressed and Dried). She therefore knewthat the place was brimming with ideasand quirky stories. Together we prepareda submission to the Department ofTourism, Culture & Sport under a‘Cultural Technology Grant Scheme’ thatran in October 2010. The scheme washugely oversubscribed so we weredelighted to be chosen.

The grant was for €39 000 to cover thecosts of recording, editing, finalproduction and delivery of three themedtours. A sound recordist and graphicdesigner were employed to ensure thefinal product was as professional aspossible. Recordings were made both inthe gardens and in a studio. The tourswere to be colour-coded and self-guiding, with about 10 stops, eachlasting 2-3 minutes. The points ofinterest would be marked with numbereddisks, and a map would be needed,showing the corresponding colour-coded and numbered signs, to guidevisitors along the audio trail. In as far asit was feasible, the intention was for theaudio guides to be free of charge.

From the beginning we identified anumber of alternative users: those withportable media player (mp3) players;

the difficulties with speed of delivery,especially when multiple users weretrying to download, made thisimpractical as well.

For visitors with older phones withneither USB nor Internet connectivity weconsidered selling a pre-loaded,reusable 1GB microSD media card. Thecustomer would in effect only pay for thecard, the audio files essentially beingfree. The memory card would allow us to“past-proof” the project: ensuring thatwe could still reach the significantpercentage of our target audience whowere using older, non-‘smart’, phones.

An alternative past-proofing solution wasan ‘In-Hand Guide’ manufactured byAudioConexus3. These low-cost, creditcard sized units (although somewhatthicker!) are manufactured with an hour(or two) of audio, and come completewith headphones, a folded map withinstructions and batteries sufficient togive 4 to 5 plays. The full set of threetours would have required a two-hourcapacity, so we opted for a selection of16 of the 29 stories, lasting just over 45minutes.

those with traditional (non-‘smart’)phones which had memory card slotsallowing the audio files to be sold pre-loaded on a removable flash memorycard (microSD); those with Smartphoneswho could download an application(app) comprising a guiding map, imagesand audio files; and lastly those with nomedia technology of anydescription.

To get the audio to theuser, a range of deliveryoptions were possible.A set of downloadablepodcasts on ourwebsite, along withdownloadable map-guides, was going to bethe basic product. Wealso considered thepossibility of peopledownloading the tours atthe gardens by USB linkfrom a dedicatedcomputer at the visitorcentre. In the end thisproved too difficult toimplement. Anotherpossibility we consideredwas using Bluetoothwireless technology to allowvisitors to load the audiofiles on arrival at the gardens.The costs of hardware and


The audio tours can be downloaded as podcasts, or as a mobile phone app to your Android phone.Alternatively a souvenir player can be bought at the gardens.

The souvenir guides come in a nicely designed boxwith a colourful map and various images

With the funds available, we were onlyable to select one of these alternatives.The difference in price per unit was moreor less comparable (ca. €5). In the endwe decided the memory cards were littleused in general, and were just not asvisually exciting as the souvenir guides.At the launch, in April 2011, presidentialhopeful Senator David Norris describedthe souvenir players as ‘cute as abutton’. And they are indeed enchantinglittle pieces of technology. They come ina nicely designed box with a colourfulmap and various images. The cost ofeach player was just under €5, for aminimum order of 1,200 units. We alsobought several hundred dual adaptorswith extra headphones for €2, allowingtwo visitors to hear the tour together.We sell the units at cost price, or at adiscount with a souvenir guide. Duringthe summer months they sold at the rateof nearly 20 a week, but considerablyfewer in the winter. To date we havesold, or given away, over 250 units anddo not intend to place a fresh order. Thepurpose all along was for these to be astop-gap, enabling the ‘non-techie’visitor to enjoy the tours.

We had initially dismissed the idea ofdeveloping a mobile phone app as thecost of development would have beenin excess of €7000. In the end a chancediscussion with a company calledZiggiapps presented the opportunityto develop an app at a highlycompetitive rate. The solution theydeveloped meant we had a fullyinteractive map of the gardens with arange of images for each audio stop. Inaddition the identical app is availableboth to iPhone and android phone users.You can search on iTunes or AndroidMarket using ‘botanic’ or visit theNational Botanic Gardens website(www.botanicgardens.ie). With apps adecision must be made early on tolaunch them for free, or for a smallcharge, this caused some debate, buteventually we decided to keep it free.

At the end of 2005 in Ireland there wereas many active mobile phone accountsas the human population in Ireland (4million). Trends suggest that by the endof 2011, 37% of all mobile phones in thecountry would be smartphones .

There are three tours in the collection,each with 40 minutes of audiocommentary. The Green tour exploresthe famous glasshouse and palm house,and is suitable for cold or wet days; theYellow tour is an easy stroll around thegardens historic highlights; and the Redtour is an extended walk to the river, forwildlife, roses and even somephilosophy. At each listening stop onthe tour, there is a prominent labelmatching the tour colour. Each stop isonly about 2 minutes or so of audioallowing the visitor a chance to hear thestory and admire the plant or building.The stories were written and narrated byMatthew Jebb and Mary Mulvihill, aswell as the gardens’ orchid expertBrendan Sayers, and wildlife guide GlynnAnderson.

Matthew JebbDirector,National Botanic gardens ofIrelandGlasnevinDublin 9IrelandEmail: [email protected]

“ Irish mobile phone users

download an average of one new

app every week.”Within 6 months of the launch, the apphad been downloaded over 2,000 timeswith about an equal division between thetwo formats.

Every plant in our collection has a storyto tell, and the audio tours havepresented us with an excellent,unobtrusive way in which to bring thesestories to as many visitors as possible.The stories are unashamedly wacky –A tree with no leaves, where is the soulof a plant?, the loneliest plant in theworld. As for the sheep eating plant…visit www.botanicgardens.ie/audio orscan the QR codes to download the appand hear all about it!


A listening stop on the ‘Green’ tour (NationalBotanic Gardens)

QR codefor Android Users.

QR codefor iPhone users.

Introduction

In 2010, with support from the CalousteGulbenkian Foundation, BGCIcommissioned the University of

Leicester’s Research Centre forMuseums and Galleries (RCMG) to carryout a study examining the social role andrelevance of contemporary botanicgardens. The study, which was largelyUK-based, but also drew on experience

environmental and social challenges ofthe 21st Century. Fundamental to thisprocess, argued the report, was therecognition by botanic gardens that theirsocial role is inextricably linked toenvironmental issues, such as climatechange and social justice.

“ Embracing the concept of

social and environmental justice

is …..critical if botanic gardens

are to reinvigorate their

fundamental purpose.”In 2011, BGCI continued to develop thethemes identified in the 2010 study,working with partner gardens in the UKto help them re-evaluate their mission,philosophy, values, goals and practiceswithin a framework of socialresponsibility. The project was led byBGCI in collaboration with RCMG.

Project overview

The gardens participating in the projectwere asked to develop and deliver adiscrete project that would address asocial issue or community group relevantto their garden. The projects were aimedat engaging with non-traditionalaudiences on globally significant issues,such as climate change and social andenvironmental justice. To support thedevelopment and implementation ofthese projects, a series of fourworkshops were organised. Throughthese workshops, the gardens wereencouraged to re-examine their socialpractices in relation to their potentialsocial role. The rationale for theworkshops was to develop the partnergardens as socially and environmentally

from the USA and Australia, concludedthat botanic gardens possess vast yetuntapped potential as agents of socialand environmental change. RCMGrecommended that gardens shouldrelocate their social and environmentalroles within a modern framework ofvalues, mission and vision and urgedthem to work together throughpartnerships and networkingorganisations like BGCI to face the


Growing the social roleof botanic gardens

Author: BGCI

Are the prevailing organisational cultures andstructures of UK botanic gardens fit for purpose in the21st Century?

Shorefields College Year7 visit to Ness (Ness Botanic Garden)

responsible organisations. They wereencouraged to embrace organisationalchange in order to embed their socialand environmental role.

The botanic garden projects

Urban Veg at Winterbourne Houseand GardenA community-based vegetable garden,Urban Veg involved the University ofBirmingham’s Winterbourne House andGarden and Birmingham’s IslamAwareness Week Committee.Winterbourne had been invited to jointhe project on condition that it wouldwork with the city’s Muslim community,which, in 2010, amounted to around 17per cent of its total population. ForWinterbourne the project represented anopportunity to improve its visitordiversity. Typically, in line with most UKgardens, Winterbourne’s visitor profilewas predominantly white, middle classand relatively elderly.

Designed as a ‘two-way culturalexchange and learning experience,’ theproject spanned the growing season ofspring to autumn, from March - October2011. The fifteen adult participants wererecruited through Islam Awareness Weekfrom a range of backgrounds amongBirmingham’s diverse Muslimpopulation. Participants wereresponsible for every stage of theprocess, from deciding what to grow,maintaining the plot and harvesting thecrops. Winterbourne staff led workshopson growing vegetables organically,including sowing, planting and

Staff are clearly more conscious ofawareness training and undoubtedlytheir thinking is changing. Participantscame up with inspiring suggestions forthe development of Urban Veg –extending the concept of growingvegetables into the community; seeingWinterbourne represented at festivalsand melas; and using local radio stationsto highlight the work of Winterbourne forMuslim listeners.

Engaging Secondary Schools –Ness Botanic GardenThe project undertaken by the Universityof Liverpool’s Ness Botanic GardenEngaging Secondary Schools targetedsocially disadvantaged people in itscatchment area. In a joint project withShorefields Technology College inLiverpool, a group of secondary schoolstudents took part in six day-longsessions at the botanic garden. Duringthese sessions, they swapped theirurban classroom for the garden, plantingand growing potatoes and wildflowers,going on nature trails, hunting for insectsand wildlife, pond dipping and learningabout the life cycles of aquatic life andfinding out about bees from a realbeekeeper.

maintenance techniques. Environmentalissues related to gardening werehighlighted, including waterconservation, sustainable growingmedia, chemical pollution, wildlifeawareness, ‘growing your own’, reducingcarbon footprints, food miles and thevalue of the environment in promotinghealthy living.

Winterbourne staff found that thechallenge of helping participants growunfamiliar crops tested their horticulturalskills and in engaging with participantsfrom very different backgrounds, theyalso developed their listening andnegotiating skills. As a two-way culturallearning exchange, Urban Veg was not aformal process of instruction but acollaborative process. Staff confidenceand understanding across theorganisation was developed throughtraining, enabling them to engage withthe Muslim participants in a culturallysensitive way – dealing with languagedifficulties, for example, and providingwashing facilities and space to pray.

Urban Veg undoubtedly made its markon Winterbourne, but what will its legacybe? One motivation for the project wasto broaden audiences to the garden,making the garden less white and lessmiddle-class. The visible presence of theproject certainly had an impact, but howwill the garden sustain the work it hasdone with Muslim communities? And willMuslim communities find themselvesacknowledged and incorporated inWinterbourne’s future programmeplanning and projects?


Identification of pond dipping (Ness Botanic garden)

Discussions at Birmingham’s urban vegetable festival (Winterbourne House and Garden)

Shorefields Technology College servessome of the most socially deprived areasof Liverpool. Thirty three first languagesare spoken amongst the students at theschool and levels of attainment are verylow. However the school is working hardto improve the life opportunities of itsstudents.

Working with a secondary school fromthe inner-city of Liverpool was a newexperience for the staff at Ness. Situatedin a predominantly rural and affluent areaof Cheshire, Ness, like most UK botanicgardens attracts a predominantly white,middle-class, and middle-aged audience.Working with Shorefields was seen as anopportunity for Ness to ‘reach out’ tosocially disadvantaged groups inLiverpool and Cheshire. The projectchallenged many staff assumptions,including the perception that secondaryschool students are harder to engagewith than primary school children. Theyalso harboured negative views aboutyoung people from Liverpool.

Students selected for the project weremotivated and able scientists. Manywanted to go to University. Shorefieldswas keen to ensure that the studentswere not discouraged by the experienceof classroom learning. For both studentsand teachers the collaboration with Nessproved a very positive experience.Students talked enthusiastically aboutthe activities they had been involved inand greatly enjoyed their learning

The students met adults from verydifferent backgrounds, includingspecialists and experts with links to theUniversity, who worked well with them.The lack of negative feedback from thestudents and their obvious excitementabout visiting Ness were notable.Garden staff also saw the experience asvery positive and enjoyable, reportingthat a good relationship had developedwith students and teachers.

Many of the students did not havegardens at home and most had notvisited a botanic garden before. Theirinitial comparisons were with what wasalready familiar to them – parks,greenhouses and allotments. Gardenstaff reported that seeing the students’‘enjoyment of being outside’ made theproject worthwhile. Shorefields’ teacherssaw the visits as an opportunity for theirstudents to compare urban with ruralenvironments and understand the valueof both.

Shorefields was clear about the project’sfocus on the needs of its students. It wasa learning experience that took them

experiences outside the classroom,especially the practical elements of thesessions. They were allowedconsiderable autonomy within the safeboundaries of the garden.


Planting out seedlings and seed sowing (Winterbourne House and Garden)

Cultivating the plants in the vegetable garden (Winterbourne House and Garden)

away from their everyday lives andbrought them into contact with a range ofpeople within a new environment. Thedesire to raise the aspirations of itsstudents was a key motivator. Thegarden’s link with the University ofLiverpool was critical. Shorefields saw anopportunity to make the idea of universitymore accessible to their students, manyof whom are from families with noexperience of university, and to plant theidea of potential careers in the sciences.

For Ness, the project synchronised withthe University’s strategy of championingactivities that involved knowledgeexchange, widening participation,research and innovation. It was alsolinked to a ‘sustainability framework’designed to ‘enhance the purpose andrelevance of university botanic gardensand their plant collections by utilisingskilled and knowledgeable staff tobenefit the community and society as awhole.’ However, although staff at Nessrecognised that botanic gardens do havea role to play in developing youngpeople’s learning beyond the curriculum,they lacked the means to fullycommunicate how to do this.Nevertheless, the project showed whatNess could do, and may provide amodel for the garden to replicate withother schools, perhaps helping tobroaden the view the botanic gardenhas of what is possible in terms ofdeveloping its social role.

gardens develop their social role.These include developing a vision for thesector, ensuring that the work of botanicgardens is rooted in the wider nationalpolicy context and understanding howthey form part of a bigger societalpicture. Training is essential for gardensto understand the context and barriers toparticipation and what it means to beexcluded, as well as the dynamics ofcommunity engagement andpartnership.

As the report concludes:

“ gardens need to reach out

into their neighbouring

communities to establish

meaningful and mutually

beneficial relationships. They

cannot merely see themselves as

islands separate and distinct

from the world around them.

That way lies irrelevance.”This article is based on the report:“Growing the social role, partnerships inthe community” available for downloadfrom BGCI website: www.bgci.org/education/communitiesinnature.

Lessons learnedThe projects undertaken as part ofGrowing the Social Role of BotanicGardens showed that botanic gardenshave the potential to significantly impacton individuals, garden staff andcommunities. The examples of Ness andWinterbourne also demonstrated thateven apparently disenfranchisedcommunities can be willing andenthusiastic partners in joint socialenterprises. Moreover the barriers totheir involvement are not insuperable.However, gardens in the UK are still atan early stage in this process ofengagement and there is much work todo if they are to demonstrate their realpotential. Gardens need to be able torelate what they are doing to the widerpolicy context and see how they are partof a bigger societal picture.

The involvement of Ness andWinterbourne Botanic Gardens inGrowing the Social Role tested theirmanagement structures andorganisational practices and challengedthem to reflect on and develop theirsocial roles. Neither garden found theprocess straightforward but theirengagement with new groupsdemonstrated the benefits that botanicgardens can offer marginalisedcommunities when they embracetheir social role. As a result of theproject, RCMG made a series ofrecommendations to help botanic


Discussions at Birmingham’s urban vegetable festival (Winterbourne House and Garden)

Introduction

TheAustralian Seed Bank Partnership isgoverned by The Council of Heads ofAustralian Botanic Gardens Incorporated

(CHABG Inc.) and brings together Australia’sleading botanical institutions, seed scientistsand conservation and restoration experts(Table 1) to collaborate in the collecting andbanking of native seed for conservation, aswell as developing enabling technologies andsharing the body of knowledge required forindustry development and strengtheningAustralia’s capacity to restore and connectlandscapes and ecosystems through seed-based restoration.

Background

The Council of Heads of AustralianBotanic Gardens was formed in the1990s as a network of Directors fromAustralia’s capital city botanic gardens.The original purpose of the network wasto provide a forum for capital citybotanic gardens to share information,develop policy and discuss andcoordinate strategic initiatives for theirmutual benefit and the benefit of their

The partnership is an excellentexample of how the AustralianGovernment and not-for-profitsector can work together. TheAustralian Government supports thisconservation programme throughthe Director of National ParksStatutory Agency (DNP). The DNPemploys a National Coordinator todevelop and maintain the AustralianSeed Bank Partnership programmefor CHABG Inc. and provides anoperational budget, facilities andservices for the Secretariat throughthe Australian National BotanicGardens.


SAFEGUARDINGAUSTRALIA’S FLORA

THROUGH THE AUSTRALIAN SEED BANK PARTNERSHIP

Author: Lucy Sutherland

The Australian Seed Bank Partnership is an ambitiouslong term strategy to safeguard Australia’s flora in theface of changing climates and other threats to itsunique plant communities and landscapes.

Table 1: Members of the Australian Seed Bank Partnership1

• Australian National Botanic Gardens*• Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority (WA)*• Botanic Gardens of Adelaide (SA)*• Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mount Coot-tha (Qld)*• George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens (NT)*• Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust (NSW)*• Royal Botanic Gardens Board (Vic)*• Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (Tas)*• Australian Network for Plant Conservation• Threatened Flora Seed Centre, Department of Environment and Conservation (WA)• Greening Australia• Griffith University• Royal Botanic Gardens Kew• University of Queensland

Restoration of Australian landscapes involvesindividuals, community groups, governmentagencies and non-government organisationsworking collaboratively and sharing their expertiseand knowledge (Greening Australia).

1 Those partners marked with an * have a representative on themanagement committee of CHABG Inc.

communities. Evolving this network intoa not-for-profit organisation has createdan outward focused charity whichsupports the protection, conservationand enhancement of Australian plantsand their ecosystems, as well as theprovision of information and educationand undertaking research about plantsand plant communities. By establishinga legal body and realigning the focus,CHABG Inc. is in a position to coordinateefforts nationally to make significantcontributions by botanic gardens andtheir partners to national conservationprogrammes through the scientific,research, horticultural and educationalexpertise within these organisations.

The Australian Seed Bank Partnership(formerly known as Australian SeedConservation and Research AuSCaR)builds on the legacy of work andAUD$24 million investment from 2001-2010 undertaken as part of theMillennium Seed Bank Project (nowPartnership). Through this work, theAustralian Partners have a proven trackrecord in seed conservation andgermination research, and to date havesafeguarded over 8,000 plant speciesacross a network of conservation seedbanks throughout Australia, andimproved knowledge about germinationfor more than 2,800 of the species thathave been banked. The Australian SeedBank Partnership is CHABG Inc.’s mainplant conservation programme.

A far reaching impact throughcollaboration

Around 92% of Australia’s plant speciesare endemic. The loss, degradation andfragmentation of natural habitatsthreaten the native flora. Plants are lessresilient to external pressures when thecommunities of which they are a partshrink, or when populations becomeisolated from each other. Currently, inAustralia, more than 1,300 plant speciesand ecological communities are knownto be compromised nationally and at riskof extinction. For each species listed asthreatened, there are many moreaffected by loss of habitat and otherhazards.

By evolving the AuSCaR network to theAustralian Seed Bank Partnership(ASBP), under CHABG Inc., there hasbeen a significant breakthrough in termsof bringing together expertise within


Increasing our knowledge on seed germination will help to restore understorey species and recreate resilientenvironments (Bindi Vanzella).

institutions, governed under differentstate legislation, to tackle conservationat a national level through seed scienceand seed banking. ASBP programme isa commitment by CHABG Inc. to activelysupport the implementation of Australia’sBiodiversity Conservation Strategy 2010-2030 (Natural Resources MinisterialCouncil 2010:21-22) and provides anational safety net for Australia’s plantspecies through ex situ conservation thatwill provide options for the future use ofthese species and provide importantinsurance against biodiversity loss.

Conservation seed banking efforts frommembers of the ASBP have also beensignificant in assisting the AustralianGovernment to fulfil its majorinternational obligations under theConvention on Biological Diversity andmore specifically, the Convention’sGlobal Strategy for Plant Conservation(GSPC). The ongoing work of thePartners contributes to the GSPC’sobjectives of understanding,documenting and recognising plantdiversity and ensuring plant diversity isurgently and effectively conserved.Moreover, it contributes to the GSPC2020 targets focusing on conservationand restoration such as Targets 4 and 8which specify a minimum of 15% ofeach ecological region or vegetationtype be secured through effectivemanagement and/or restoration, with atleast 75% of threatened plant species inex situ collections and at least 20% of

1) A Knowledge Hub - Australia’sVirtual Seed BankWhile collecting seeds and undertakingresearch, partners have captured largeamounts of information on flowering andfruiting periods in a diversity ofAustralian landscapes as well as detailsof germination and seed storagerequirements for particular plant species.The Partnership is collaborating with theAtlas of Living Australia2 to build anaccessible online seed informationresource, built on national standards, sothe data can be shared, retrieved andutilised as efficiently and effectively aspossible. This virtual seed bank will:

• Bring together research knowledgefrom across the nation to enhanceunderstanding of seed handling andstorage leading to improve seedconservation and use practices;

• Support policy and planning andguide research development;

• Provide up-to-date information torestoration and conservationpractitioners, and community groups,on the unique reproductive biologyand ecology of native plants, tosupport integrated conservation andecosystem restoration programmes;

• Encourage knowledge sharing tosupport economic development ofnative biological resources e.g. for thenursery and horticulture industry,native seed industry and Australianfarmers.

2) National seed collectionSeveral of the initiatives beingundertaken by the ASBP will contributeto the development of a comprehensivestore of wild native plant seeds andgenetic resources for conservation riskmanagement and insurance against theloss of wild plant diversity. Throughcoordinated and collaborative efforts,the aim is to increase the efficiency ofseed collecting and banking activitiesand reduce costs and unnecessaryduplication.

One priority for the upcoming years isthe 1,000 Species Project. This projectbrings together expertise from acrossthe country; the Partners will collect andstore seed from 1,000 native plantspecies which are valued for theirendemic, endangered or economic

those available for recovery andrestoration programmes. ThePartnership also makes significantcontributions to such international effortsas the Millennium Seed BankPartnership at the Royal BotanicGardens Kew.

The ASBP is anticipated to have ongoingfar reaching effects. The work providesan insurance against the loss of plantspecies in the wild. Furthermore, theseed bank collections, combined withthe knowledge of their germinationrequirements and survival strategiesprovide an irreplaceable resource forgovernment, non-governmentorganisations, landholders andcommunity groups who are activelyconserving and restoring Australia’s richand diverse landscapes.

What are the priorities?

Members of the ASBP are combiningtheir collecting and research efforts tocreate a distributed network of seedbanks. These combined effortscapitalise on the nation’s expertise andassist with risk management ofcollections, and enable a cost effectiveresponse to safeguarding Australia’sflora. The efforts will aim to achievesecurity for Australia’s wild plantdiversity and increased understanding ofways to enable its sustainable use. Overthe next few years, the Partnership’sefforts will focus on:


Seed banking activities over recent years have led to the discovery of new species, the rediscovery of speciesthought to be extinct in the wild, as well as establishment of new populations. Mentha atrolilacina was a newdiscovery made by the South Australian Seed Conservation Centre (SASCC) (SASCC).

2 www.ala.org.au

significance. The focus will be onspecies not already collected andsecured in Australia’s conservation seedbanks.

A second priority is furthering seedscience to support restoration activitiesthrough the Restoring Diversity Project.Understanding seed biology ofAustralia’s diverse flora is a barrier to thesuccess of restoring diversity in broadscale landscapes, which is an AustralianGovernment priority. Focusing collectiondevelopment on priority ecosystems andbuilding a body of knowledge throughresearch and development undertakenby ASBP members will make asignificant contribution to overcomingbarriers to effective restoration, as wellas effectively building a national seedcollection for conservation.

Challenges to overcome

CHABG Inc. faces several challengeswith the ASBP programme. Firstly, anynational approach to conservation workin Australia is influenced by the fact thatthe nation is governed as a federation ofsix states and two territories andtensions are created by the powersbeing divided between the centralgovernment and individual states.Furthermore, each state and territoryoperates under different legislation, withvarying support given to biodiversityconservation and research anddevelopment.

Ex situ conservation is often regarded asa ‘last resort’ in Australia and its role inintegrated conservation management isnot always recognised or highly valued.A second challenge for CHABG Inc. is toincrease understanding anddemonstrating the value of seed scienceand seed banking for the conservationand sustainable use of Australia’sbiodiversity, as well as broad-scalelandscape restoration. This will assistthe greater integration of ex situconservation into in situ conservationand restoration activities.

Current conservation fundingprogrammes in Australia place emphasison practical outcomes. Seed researchand development of enablingtechnologies for landscape conservationand restoration programmes often fail tomeet the criteria for these fundingprogrammes. CHABG Inc.’s third

Dr Lucy A. SutherlandNational Coordinator -Australian Seed BankPartnershipAustralian National BotanicGardensGPO Box 1777, Canberra ACT2601AustraliaEmail: [email protected]

Defining commonly usedterms

Restoration – the return of adegraded habitat to its originalspecies composition, structure andfunction.

Revegetation – to provide a habitatwith vegetation; may not necessarilyinclude original provenance orspecies composition.

Source: Offord, C.A. and Meagher,P.F. 2009. Plant GermplasmConservation in Australia: strategiesand guidelines for developing,managing and utilising ex situcollections. Canberra: AustralianNetwork of Plant ConservationIncorporated.

challenge is to build greater support andrecognition for seed banking, seedscience and seed biology to facilitategreater resources for this work to beundertaken at the scale needed to makeeffective contributions to theconservation and restoration ofAustralia’s biodiversity.

Conclusion

The functional boundaries of Australiancapital city botanic gardens are beingpushed by the need for a suitableframework for the ASBP’s conservationactivities. The creation of a nationalbotanic garden not-for-profit entity (i.e.The Council of Heads of AustralianBotanic Gardens Incorporated) supportsbotanic gardens to work collaborativelyfor the protection, conservation andenhancement of Australian plants andtheir ecosystems. Furthermore, acurrent focus on the ASBP Programmecreates an environment where staff areable to look beyond their institution andcontribute to national efforts forbiodiversity conservation through seedscience and seed banking and thesharing of knowledge. There are greathopes, through this innovative approach,to increase resources being allocated toseed science and banking and to raiseawareness and understanding of the farreaching impacts of seed science.

35

The future of the threatened Mountain Swainson Pea (Swainsona recta) in the Australian Capital Territory isbeing helped by seed collection and banking and the propagation of plants for translocation to a secure site(R. Hotchkiss).

BGCI’s INSTITUTION members receive numerous benefits:• Opportunities for involvement in joint conservation and education projects• Tools and opportunities to influence global conservation policy and action• Botanic Garden Management Resource Pack (upon joining)*• Our twice yearly e-publications:

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INDIVIDUAL members and donorssupport BGCI’s global network forplant conservation, and areconnected to it through ourpublications and events.

*Contents of the Botanic Garden Management Resource Pack include:Darwin Technical Manual for Botanic Gardens, A Handbook for Botanic Gardens on the Reintroduction of Plants to the Wild, BGjournal -an international journal for botanic gardens, Roots - Environmental Education Review, The International Agenda for Botanic Gardens inConservation, Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, Environmental Education in Botanic Gardens, additional recent BGCI reports and manuals.

Many of these publications have been translated into Chinese. Please contact us for more details.

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Documents

Botanicgardens- science,innovationand pushingboundaries · Journal of Botanic Gardens Conservation International Volume 9 • Number 1 • January 2012 Botanicgardens-science,innovationand