Documentation and Databases for Plant Conservation

At the 1999 International Botanical Congress held in St Louis, Missouri, the President of the Congress, Dr Peter Raven, presented a keynote address emphasizing the importance of plants to human existence and underlined concerns that the Earth is undergoing a human-induced extinction crisis. One of the resolutions of the congress was to establish a new co-ordinating body associated with the United Nations to monitor the status of plants throughout the world and take steps to conserve them. The resolutions were followed up with a meeting in Gran Canaria on 3–4 April, 2000 when leading botanists met to formulate a declaration which could be taken forward to the fifth Conference of the Parties (CoP5) to the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Nairobi in May 2000. CoP5 recognized that plant diversity is a common concern of humankind and an essential resource for the planet, with as many as two-thirds of the world's plant species in danger of extinction, and proposed that at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP6) the establishment of a global strategy for plant conservation should be considered. A strategy with 16 targets was presented and adopted at the CoP6 meeting held in The Hague in April 2002. These targets differ from the normal approach adopted in the Convention on Biological Diversity of using general principles that can be interpreted by national policy, in that they are quantified.

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Why and How to Make Plant Conservation Ecosystem-Based

Sustainable Agriculture Research ◽

10.5539/sar.v1n1p48 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 48 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Alan Hamilton ◽

Shengji Pei ◽

Huyin Huai ◽

Seona Anderson

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Plant Species ◽

Plant Cover ◽

Plant Conservation ◽

The State ◽

The Earth ◽

Whole Plant ◽

Training Programmes ◽

Ecologically Sustainable

Compared to other groups of organisms, plants require distinctive approaches in their conservation because of their keystone roles in ecosystems and economies. The state of the whole plant cover of the Earth should be of concern to conservationists – for its capacity to ensure the survival of plant species, deliver ecosystem services (locally to globally) and provide produce from plants in ecologically sustainable ways. The primary targets of attention in ecosystem-based plant conservation are the relationships between people and plants, as relevant to every locality, rather than the species-centric approach of conventional plant conservation. Moving plant conservation to an ecosystem-based approach will require the development of training programmes for field practitioners and of information systems for their use.

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Problems of plant conservation in agricultural landscapes: can biotechnology help or hinder?

Methods for Risk Assessment of Transgenic Plants ◽

10.1007/978-3-0348-8033-6_12 ◽

2003 ◽

pp. 109-120

Author(s):

Brian Johnson

Keyword(s):

Plant Conservation ◽

Agricultural Landscapes

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Earth Optimism: Success Stories in Plant Conservation

Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden ◽

10.3417/d-16-00010a ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 102 (2) ◽

pp. 331-340 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Gary Krupnick ◽

Nancy Knowlton

Keyword(s):

Plant Conservation ◽

Success Stories

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GENETIC VARIATION IN RARE AND WIDESPREAD LOMATIUM SPECIES (APIACEAE): A COMPARISON OF AFLP AND SSCP DATA

Edinburgh Journal of Botany ◽

10.1017/s0960428601000671 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 347-356 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

M. A. GITZENDANNER ◽

P. S. SOLTIS

Keyword(s):

Rare Species ◽

Nucleotide Diversity ◽

Nuclear Dna ◽

Allelic Variation ◽

Plant Conservation ◽

Single Copy ◽

Small Populations ◽

Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽

Widespread Species ◽

Low Levels

Plant conservation genetics has been hampered by a lack of markers for studies of levels and patterns of variation in rare species. We investigated the levels of variation in several rare and widespread species of the western North American genus Lomatium Raf. (Apiaceae) using two relatively new molecular markers: AFLPs and single-strand conformation polymorphisms (SSCPs). For each species, approximately 150 AFLP loci have been scored, yielding estimates of species-level percent polymorphic loci in rare species ranging from near zero to over 80%. Levels of AFLP diversity were similar in two of the rare species, L. bradshawii (Rose ex Mathias) Mathas & Constance and L. ochocense Helliwell & Constance, and the widespread species. The third rare species, L. cookii Kagan, which has small populations, has low levels of diversity based on AFLPs. We also examined nucleotide diversity at the single-copy nuclear-DNA locus glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (Gap-C). PCR-amplified segments were analysed for allelic variation using SSCPs, and intrapopulational nucleotide polymorphisms were identified in both L. bradshawii and L. cookii. In the 211bp segment of Gap-C analysed, five nucleotide sites were segregating within populations of L. bradshawii and two in L. cookii.

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