Crop wild relatives, the wild progenitors and closely related cousins of cultivated plant
species, are sources of valuable genetic resources for crop improvement. Persisting gaps
in knowledge of taxonomy, distributions, and...

Interception of potential invasive species at ports-of-entry is essential for effective biosecurity
and biosurveillance programs. However, taxonomic assessment of the immature stages
of most arthropods is challenging; characters for...

Successful germination represents a crucial developmental transition in the plant
lifecycle and is important both for crop yields and plant survival in natural ecosystems.
However, germination potential decreases during storage and seed...

Botanic gardens play major roles in plant conservation globally. Since the 1980s, the number of botanic gardens worldwide and their involvement in integrating ex situ and in situ plant conservation has increased signifi cantly, with a growing focus on...

The USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) is a coordinated network of 19 genebank locations throughout the United States that perform research to acquire, maintain,
regenerate, document, distribute, characterize, and evaluate plant...

These best practices represent a compilation of previous CPC guidelines with updated
recommendations from current research on rare plant conservation. Seed science is a rapidly growing field. To keep abreast of changes in technology and practice...

Canada is home to about 5087 species of higher plants of which 25% were introduced to Canada either deliberately or by accident. The richness of botanical species is highest in the southern, more densely settled parts of the country. About 364 native...

During the last centuries, humans have transformed global ecosystems. With their temporal
dimension,herbaria provide the otherwise scarce long-termdata crucial for trackingecological and
evolutionarychangesover thisperiodof intense global...

The first two decades of the twenty-first century have seen a rapid rise in the mobilization of digital biodiversity data. This has thrust natural history museums into the forefront of biodiversity research, underscoring their central role in the...

Functional traits are increasingly used to understand the ecology of plants and to predict their responses to global changes. Unfortunately, trait data are unavailable for the majority of plant species. The lack of trait data is especially prevalent...

October 17 Morning Sessions at University of British Columbia:  

• Adapting a World-Renowned Botanic Garden to Climate Change-Chris Cole (Speaker): https://www.
...

Collaboration of the authors over the past ten years has resulted in the acquisition and preservation of one of the most comprehensive ex situ woody plant seed collections represented in the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System and a Nationally...

Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is a large charismatic plant, native to Sumatra, that is grown at gardens around the world. Due to its size, it is difficult to maintain multiple plants at each garden. For this reason, we are creating an...

This infographic is a good illustration of the life of a tissue sample at Denver Botanic Gardens. It shows the different steps taken to collect and preserve DNA tissue and eventually publish tissue and specimen data on the Global Genome Biodiversity...

Access and benefit-sharing (ABS) refers to the way in which genetic resources
may be accessed, and how the benefits that result from their use are shared
between the people or countries using the resources (users) and the people or...

Plant breeders require genetic diversity to develop cultivars that are productive, nutritious,
tolerant of biotic and abiotic stresses, and make efficient use of water and fertilizer. The USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) is a...

Cycads are the most endangered of plant groups based on IUCN Red List assessments; all are in Appendix I or II of CITES, about 40% are within biodiversity ‘hotspots,’ and the call for action to improve their protection is longstanding. We contend that...

The facts and figures contained in the pages of this report and accompanying website will probably come as a total revelation to many people. The first of its kind outlining the state of the world’s fungi, the report highlights just how important fungi...

The first TGI report, published in 2015, identified eight critical gaps slowing the transfer of stress-adapted trees from upstream research to forest owners and managers. The gaps fell into three categories: Innovation, Policy, and Markets. TGI members...

Selecting the geographic origin—the provenance—of seed is a key decision in restoration. The last decade has seen a vigorous debate on whether to use local or nonlocal seed. The use of local seed has been the preferred approach because it is expected...