This is a companion resource to a presentation given by Tim Boland, Polly Hill Arboretum, entitled The American Oaks: Diversity, Ecology, Identification as part of the "A Focus On Sustainability" Webinar Series. 

Ten years ago the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria embarked on an ambitious project to collect, treat and distribute storm water from the catchment within and around the botanic garden. The infrastructure of wetlands filtration, a sophisticated water ...

Plant and fungal specimens provide the auditable evidence that a particular organism
occurred at a particular place, and at a particular point in time, verifying past occurrence
and distribution. They also document the aspects of human...

The adoption of a Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) in 2002 and its subsequent renewal in 2010 were significant milestones for the Convention on Biological Diversity. Not only did this strategy, its objectives and targets provide a valuable...

This survey conducted in fall 2019 was part of a research project for a masters degree at Vancouver Island University, in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The survey was administered by Jodi Healy in collaboration with the Alliance for Public...

The format of this edited volume offers each of the three communities (natural history museums, botanical gardens, zoological gardens) the opportunity to present their cutting-edge research and communications outreach activities. In addition, this...

Maintaining a living plant collection is the most common method of ex situ conservation for plant
species that cannot be seed banked i.e. “exceptional” species. Viability of living collections, and their value for future conservation efforts,...

The Hamamelidaceae has genera with named cultivars, but only one cultivar registration authority for the genus Hamamelis. Choosing the Hamamelidaceae as the focus of this project provides missing information for members of this ornamentally valuable...

This is an example from Denver Botanic Gardens of a Material Transfer Agreement:
Living Collections Access and Distribution Form. 

The U.S. national heritage of approximately one billion biodiversity specimens, once
digitized, can be linked to emerging digital data sources to form an information-rich network
for exploring earth’s biota across taxonomic, temporal and...

Natural history museums are unique spaces for interdisciplinary research and for educational
innovation. Through extensive exhibits and public programming and by hosting rich
communities of amateurs, students, and researchers at all...

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...

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...

Ulmus americana (American elm) was an important urban tree in North America prior to the introduction of the Dutch elm disease pathogen in 1930. Subsequently, urban and community forests were devastated by the loss of large canopies. Tree improvement...

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 Standards of Excellence in Plant Collections Management developed by the Plant...

 A companion Self-Assessment Tool is now available to help you evaluate your organization’s current level of collections management. Use the results along with the...