From Plant Press, Vol. 19, No. 2, April 2016.
By Sara Oldfield
One of the important ways that botanists have responded to the global loss of biodiversity is by documenting the plight of rare and threatened species. The Smithsonian Institution has played a lead role in this task for 40 years or more since the early days of working with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on red listing plants. Collection data and herbarium specimens continue to be of primary value in assessing the conservation status of plant taxa - a task that is far from complete at a global level. Conservation assessments help to stimulate action for priority threatened species, but with the unfolding impact of climate change, can we afford to ignore the more common elements of plant diversity?
In August 2015 the National Seed Strategy for Restoration and Rehabilitation was launched in Boise, Idaho. The Smithsonian Institution was one of the 12 Federal agencies involved in developing this Strategy. Also involved were over 300 non-federal co-operators of the Plant Conservation Alliance including commercial seed producers and plant nurseries. The National Seed Strategy responds to the national shortage of native seed required for ecological restoration. At a global level, United Nation biodiversity targets call for restoration of 15 percent of degraded land by 2020. In the US, as elsewhere, native seed is required to restore land impacted by fire, the spread of invasive species, overuse, mining, coastal flooding and soil erosion. These threatening factors increase the risk of extinction faced by rare species, but increasingly they impact common species too.
Restoring native plant communities using native plant species of appropriate provenance is a requirement of Federal policies relating to climate change, the need to restore healthy populations of pollinators, and the need to restore fire-damaged sagebrush communities in the western United States. The National Seed Strategy recognizes the challenges of obtaining and delivering adequate quantities of appropriate seed to meet restoration needs which are often difficult to predict. The right seed, often of common "workhorse species," needs to be available for use at the right time and in the right place. Understanding which plant species are appropriate for specific localities relies on an understanding of plant distributions which in turn depend on collection data and herbarium records.
The National Seed Strategy builds on existing initiatives such as the Seeds of Success (SOS) program led by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Since 2001 SOS has made more than 16,000 native seed collections representing over 5,000 taxa. The emphasis is on collecting orthodox seed for restoration needs particularly of species most at risk of climate change and associated threats, and species representative of key ecological communities. The goal is to bank seeds of 14,000 native taxa. Voucher specimens of all SOS collections are deposited at the U.S. National Herbarium with duplicates in local herbaria.
Implementation of the National Seed Strategy will scale up seed collection, seed production and ecological restoration through a coordinated inter-agency approach. The first major step will be a comprehensive needs and capacity assessment followed by increased research and management tools to enhance production. Communication is considered a key component to ensure active participation of a diverse set of public and private partners. The urgent need to document and conserve rare and threatened plants remains. But now the botanical community has a broader role to play in ensuring that the importance of maintaining all native plant diversity is recognized, and that materials are developed for restoration of plant diversity at a landscape level.
For a copy of the Seed Strategy visit http://www.blm.gov/seedstrategy.
thank you for this information.
Posted by: maryjane | 05/23/2017 at 03:55 AM
Good job God bless
Posted by: patrick | 06/29/2017 at 03:39 AM
Thanks. This is a great post
Posted by: Evelyn Wangari | 06/29/2017 at 05:20 AM
This is wonderful.
Posted by: Jacque | 06/30/2017 at 05:34 AM
great work......really impressive
Posted by: enock | 07/02/2017 at 02:38 AM
unrivaled
Posted by: Martin Buuri Kaburia | 07/02/2017 at 08:03 AM