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SUMMARY:Evaluating ex-situ conservation of threatened plants in the botani
 c garden network - Ross Mounce\, Brockington group
DTSTART:20170504T120000Z
DTEND:20170504T123000Z
UID:TALK71783@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:42122
DESCRIPTION:Botanic gardens offer the opportunity to conserve and manage a
  wide range of plant diversity ex situ\, and in situ in the broader landsc
 ape\, and have a major role to play in preventing plant species extinction
 s. The role of botanic gardens in plant conservation is based on two expec
 tations. First that there is no technical reason why any plant species sho
 uld become extinct\, given the array of techniques available to plant cons
 ervationists including seed banking\, cultivation\, tissue culture\, assis
 ted migration\, species recovery\, and ecological restoration. Second\, th
 at botanic gardens possess a unique set of skills which encompass finding\
 , identifying\, collecting\, conserving and growing plant diversity across
  the entire taxonomic spectrum. Here we test these assertions by quantifyi
 ng\, for the first time\, how plant diversity is currently conserved and m
 anaged in the world's botanic gardens. Our analyses reveal that the world'
 s botanic gardens conserve and manage an astonishing amount of the world's
  diversity\, with 105\,634 unique species in their living collections and 
 seed banks\, equating to 30% of all plant species diversity.  Furthermore\
 , as a testament to the conservation strength of the network\, at least 18
 \,173 or 40% of threatened plant species are conserved ex-situ in the livi
 ng collections and seed banks of botanic garden collections. But against t
 his\, our analyses also demonstrate a number of challenges: the temperate 
 bias of the botanic garden network means that up to 70% of tropical specie
 s are not documented in ex-situ collections\; the horticultural bias towar
 ds vascular and flowering plant species ensures that key evolutionary and 
 ecologically critical non-vascular plant lineages are poorly represented a
 nd unprotected\, and\; the collective response of botanic gardens to extin
 ction risk is not clearly detectable with only 15% of global capacity devo
 ted to the cultivation of threatened species. We argue that the global bot
 anic garden network has  fundamental and exceptional role to play but iden
 tify the following actions to enhance our protection of the world's plant 
 biodiversity: 1) more botanic garden capacity in biodiverse areas of the w
 orld\; 2) development of horticultural expertise and techniques towards un
 represented lineages\; 3) an enhanced global bioinformatic tool set for li
 ving collections\; 4) better strategic co-ordination of targeted acquisiti
 ons within the network particularly with respect to threatened plants\, an
 d\; 5) the need to work closely with other land-based sectors to realise t
 he conservation potential of the botanic garden collections in the in-situ
  landscape. 
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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