In California we have over 5,000 species of native plants, and no lands so far set aside to preserve those native plants in managed refugia, where the exotic plants are managed to help protect the native species for perpetuity. A Botanical Ark could be in situ living seed banks, that could preserve the plant species, along with their co-evolved insects and birds, etc. I am estimating that to preserve our 5,000 species we need at least 600 refugia of at least one hectare each, scattered across California about every 10 kilometers in each direction. The costs to establish them, needs to be the land costs, plus an annual management cost to keep exotic plants and exotic animals out, and to improve the sites by direct seeding of the local native seeds.
My colleagues and I in the Eastern Caribbean are looking into preserves and managed areas to help protect native plants.
In Antigua in the Lesser Antilles, we are in the beginning stages of a project to establish a native plant nursery and garden. The garden would allow us to secure native plants: from orchids and ferns to trees, and use to increase awareness about the value of native species and habitats. We are working closely with local communities to develop the project. Funding is an issue so we are starting small.
In the US Virgin Islands, we have just started a small project to locate populations of rare and endangered native plants, GPS their locations and assess the habitat conditions as well as threats and opportunities. These will inform a local conservation strategy and possibly develop a native plant garden sometime down the road.
These are very small at the moment, but hopefully with hard work and a lot of networking we can save most if not all of the target species.
Cheers,
K
Certainly a good idea toward building resiliency, though it should also include seed banking due to the gross environmental uncertainty. Across our Natl Parks, which are arguably some of the most protected landscapes, we still face losing some plant species because of phenology mismatching that is showing up. Some plant distributions are moving north in latitude and right out of our park system....which in some cases means they could disappear from the landscape altogether. Building a living refugia network is a great idea to help protect against this. Banking genetics is still critical though because we have no idea what innovations and technologies just haven't been developed yet.
Thanks for your replies so far. Looking at the situation in California, the 600 Botanical Arks or Managed Refugia would work both as in-situ living seed banks, but might be better than any ex-situ bank, That is because along with preserving the seeds you preserve the rest of the biome that goes with those plants, like the soil fungi, insects, etc. You also preserve the structure of the ecosystem, which can be a template for restoring other areas. When I established my small Ark in Palo Alto, within one year six species of fungi popped up, that did not occur elsewhere nearby, that you can see at http://www.ecoseeds.com/arastradero.html.
In Ireland there is a seed bank being managed by the Botany Department in Trinity College Dublin
I believe that the most reasonable way of doing this is through an ex situ collection. In our botanical garden, we are nowadays tsyng to preserve the species of tres from the local flora, although it is very difficult, because of the lack of support from the local authorities.
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Ecology