Saving the Genetic Diversity of Plant Life: A More Novel Approach is Key

A continuously changing climate threatens some of the world's most rare and ecologically important agriculture, along with other factors that harm the genetic diversity of plant life.

Now, recent findings published in the journal Biological Conservation found that the safest and most effective way to preserve these remains could be through seed banks.

"Our approach can be used to further refine seed collection guidelines, which could lead to much more efficient and effective collections, allowing us to preserve more diversity of the world's plants," said lead study author Sean Hoban, in a news release. Hoban is a postdoctoral fellow at NIMBioS. "These collections could benefit future ecosystem restoration projects as well as improve agricultural and forestry efforts."

In the past, seed collections have been used as a one-size-fits- all model regardless of the plant species' pollination mode, growth, habitat and population size.

In the new study, researchers found that more carefully triggering seed collections to specific species and situations were critical to preserving plant diversity that can be reintroduced favorably in certain locations.

Researchers from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis and the University of Tennessee used a novel approach known as simulation-based planning to create several new sampling recommendations that would otherwise be ineffective with a uniform sampling approach.

First collectors chose their plant populations based on a wide area rather than a restricted one; this allowed them to capture up to around 200 percent more rare genes than restricted sampling. In addition, they also collected seeds from another 25 maternal plants per population versus 50 plants that appeared to capture the majority of genetic variation.

Increasing concerns regarding agriculture and food security have prompted the need for fast biodiversity collections. For the future, researchers are working on ways to custom-tailor seed collections based on certain plant dispersal, mating system and biology.