Festuca and allied genera (Poaceae) as Crop Wild Relatives: Checklists and Red Lists are urgently required

Festuca s.l. is a crucial group of Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) genera, globally employed as fodder, lawn grasses and for habitat restoration. Lists elaborated strictly on the basis of a taxonomic approach are urgently needed to be used to find gaps in existing ex situ collections, to assess the conservation status of taxa of ascertained utility and include them in national Red Lists and to identify the most valuable taxa to be included in “preservation mixtures”, as per Commission Directive 2010/60/EU. As an example, the first taxonomically based priority list of Italian CWRs of Festuca s.l. is here provided.     

Microbial diversity: ex situ conservation of Indonesian microorganisms

This paper discusses the role of microbial resource collections in the ex situ conservation of microbial diversity and, in particular, the activities of a recently completed Darwin Initiative project to facilitate collection, identification and exploitation of Indonesian microbial diversity. This helped revitalize the collection of the Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuea Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of Sciences), LIPI, Research and Development Centre for Biology, Bogor, Indonesia. It is suggested that a focus on microorganisms beneficial to man is essential to enable ex situ collections to be a useful tool in the conservation and sustainable utilization of microbial diversity. This task is enormous and far beyond the capabilities of one collection and its achievement will necessitate a network of collections.     

Quasi in situ: a bridge between ex situ and in situ conservation of plants

Plant conservation urgently needs a concept that would unify different aspects of population viability as parts of conservation methodology. Such unification is especially lacking for ex situ conservation. We introduce a novel conservation approach in which ex situ collections maintained in natural or semi-natural environment and preserving both neutral and adaptive genetic diversity are a part of a complementary ex situ–in situ conservation strategy. Our approach is the first that explicitly takes into account ecologically significant (i.e. adaptive) variation of plants in both ex situ and in situ conservation actions. Using this approach we provide detailed guidelines for (1) representative sampling of the populations; (2) collection maintenance; and (3) utilization for in situ actions.     

In Situ conservation of rice genetic resources

The diversity of rice conserved ex situ is impressive from both cultivated and wild species. However, to ensure the genetic base of one of the world’s most important crops, a sound, complementary in situ conservation of rice genepools is necessary. This paper reviews habitat destruction, loss of traditional rice germplasm and limitations to ex situ conservation. Examples of in situ conservation of rice genepools are given based on the literature, herbarium specimens, as well as personal experience of the authors. Proposals for ways to enhance efforts to conserve these genetic resources in situ are given including priority setting, selection, design, management and monitoring in situ conservation sites. The need to harmonise such efforts, particularly with local needs and national priorities in conservation, is stressed.     

Enhancing the Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives in England

Humans require resilient, rapidly renewable and sustainable supplies of food and many other plant-derived supplies. However, the combined effects of climate change and population growth compromise the provision of these supplies particularly in respect to global food security. Crop wild relatives (CWR) contain higher genetic diversity than crops and harbour traits that can improve crop resilience and yield through plant breeding. However, in common with most countries, CWR are poorly conserved in England. There is currently no provision for long-term CWR conservation in situ, and comprehensive ex situ collection and storage of CWR is also lacking. However, there is a commitment to achieve their conservation in England’s Biodiversity Strategy and the UK has international commitments to do so as part of the Global Plant Conservation Strategy. Here, we identify a series of measures that could enhance the conservation of English CWR, thereby supporting the achievement of these national and international objectives. We provide an inventory of 148 priority English CWR, highlight hotspots of CWR diversity in sites including The Lizard Peninsula, the Dorset coast and Cambridgeshire and suggest appropriate sites for the establishment of a complementary network of genetic reserves. We also identify individual in situ and ex situ priorities for each English CWR. Based on these analyses, we make recommendations whose implementation could provide effective, long-term conservation of English CWR whilst facilitating their use in crop improvement.     

Ex situ conservation of plant diversity in Romania: A synthesis of threatened and endemic taxa

Romania hosts a relatively high species diversity, including 3,829 vascular and 979 non-vascular spontaneous plant taxa. Multiple national red lists exist, with the number of taxa assessed as threatened varying greatly between them, from 548 to 1,438, and with number of taxa assigned to a given threat category also varying between the different sources. A composite list including all taxa mentioned in at least one of the selected red listings from Romania is required in order to compensate for this lack of consensus and to assess their ex situ conservation status. In this study, we synthesized data from the national red lists and counted 1,220 spontaneous vascular plant species and 201 subspecies, of which 77 are endemic and 76 subendemic for Romania. In addition, 18 non-red-listed endemics and 14 subendemics have been added, bringing the total to 1,453 threatened and (sub)endemic plant taxa, representing almost 38% of the total native vascular flora of Romania. Despite the large network of protected areas in Romania, many taxa are still being threatened with extinction in the region mainly due to anthropogenic pressure. Several ex situ conservation measures have been employed to assure a more substantial buffer against plant extinction in the wild, supported by thorough and adequate conservation strategies and multiple means to reintroduce taxa back to their natural habitats. Consequently, our second aim was to evaluate the ex situ conservation status of these threatened and (sub)endemic plants from Romania, focussing on both conventional methods (cultivation in botanic gardens, seed banking) and biotechnological approaches (in vitro tissue culture, medium-term storage and cryostorage). Of the 1,453 taxa included in our list, 642 (44.2%) are conserved by ex situ approaches. Of these, 524 are harboured in the most important botanic gardens throughout Romania, while 156 are currently held in long-term seed banks locally or in the Millennium Seed Bank of the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew (UK). Conversely, only 64 taxa from the list are preserved at the national level through in vitro cultures, and cryopreservation protocols have been developed for only 8 taxa. Overall, more than half of the threatened and (sub)endemic vascular flora from Romania remains unprotected outside the classical in situ conservation measures. For red-listed bryophytes, only 0.6% are preserved in national ex situ collections. Moreover, some aspects related to population genetic studies and the genetic stability of ex situ conserved plants are also briefly discussed, as essential prerequisites for applied biodiversity conservation programs. Finally, considering the distribution range of targeted taxa, we included a synthesis of biotechnological approaches at both national and international level. Our study presents not only a first assessment of the ex situ conservation status of national red listed flora, but also, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive and updated overview of the rare, threatened and (sub)endemic taxa from Romania. This evaluation will provide a supporting tool for national decision- and policy-making actions for biodiversity conservation, using both in situ and ex situ approaches. We also highlight the need for an updated red list for the Romanian flora that accurately follows the IUCN assessment criteria and protocols.     

Low ecological representation in the protected area network of China

Protected areas are considered as an essential strategy to halt the decline of biodiversity. Ecological representation in protected areas is crucial for assessment on the progress toward conservation targets. Although China has established a large number of protected areas since the 1950s, ecological representation of protected areas is poorly understood. Here, we performed the complementarity analysis to evaluate ecological representation of protected areas in China. We used a database of the geographical distribution for 10,396 woody plant species, 2,305 fern species, 406 amphibian species, 460 reptile species, 1,364 bird species, and 590 mammal species from 2,376 counties across China. We identified complementary sets of counties for all species or threatened species of plant and vertebrate species using a complementarity algorithm. We evaluated ecological representation of 3,627 protected areas and discerned conservation gaps by comparing the distribution of protected areas with complementary sets. The results show that the spatially representative and complementary sites for biodiversity are poorly covered, and a fairly large proportion of protected areas is not designed to efficiently represent biodiversity at the national scale. Our methodology can serve as a generic framework for assessment on ecological representation of protected areas at the national scale.     

Complementarity and Area-Efficiency in the Prioritization of the Global Protected Area Network

Complementarity and cost-efficiency are widely used principles for protected area network design. Despite the wide use and robust theoretical underpinnings, their effects on the performance and patterns of priority areas are rarely studied in detail. Here we compare two approaches for identifying the management priority areas inside the global protected area network: 1) a scoring-based approach, used in recently published analysis and 2) a spatial prioritization method, which accounts for complementarity and area-efficiency. Using the same IUCN species distribution data the complementarity method found an equal-area set of priority areas with double the mean species ranges covered compared to the scoring-based approach. The complementarity set also had 72% more species with full ranges covered, and lacked any coverage only for half of the species compared to the scoring approach. Protected areas in our complementarity-based solution were on average smaller and geographically more scattered. The large difference between the two solutions highlights the need for critical thinking about the selected prioritization method. According to our analysis, accounting for complementarity and area-efficiency can lead to considerable improvements when setting management priorities for the global protected area network.     

Selecting priority areas for systematic conservation of Chinese <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rhododendron</Emphasis>: hotspot versus complementarity approaches

The use of quantitative measures to select priority areas for conservation has been in practice since the early 1980s. However, the relative efficiency of different methods for identifying priority areas is still the subject of debate. Here, using the distribution data of 556 Rhododendron species in China with high spatial resolution, we evaluated the performance of the two commonly used methods, i.e. hotspot and complementarity and selected the efficient method to select priority areas for the conservation of Rhododendron in China. By overlaying the priority areas map with the locations of protected areas, we also identified the regions not covered by current protected areas (i.e. conservation gaps). We found that the complementarity method selected less number of grid cells to capture an equivalent number of species and hence had higher efficiency and representativeness than the commonly used hotspot method. Moreover, the complementarity method was better at capturing the range-restricted species than the hotspot method. Based on the complementarity method, we identified 61 grid cells of 50?×?50 km as priority areas for Rhododendron conservation in China. Among these priority areas, only about 50% grid cells were located in the hotspot areas (e.g. Hengduan Mountains), and 14% grid cells were outside the current protected area network. Our findings suggest that, despite its popularity and ease of implementation, the sites selected by hotspot algorithm may not necessarily be the best sites to allocate conservation efforts. Since the identification of priority areas in China has largely been based on the hotspot method, the current study has revived the need to reassess the priority areas for other taxonomic groups too. More importantly, our findings have emphasized the need to expand the conservation priorities from Hengduan Mountains to south and southeast China as well.     

Planning the priority protected areas of endangered orchid species in northeastern China

We used endangered orchid species as a case study for establishing priority protected areas (PPAs). We conducted a detailed investigation of 2,884 plots in northeastern China and selected 6 nationally protected orchid species (the number of plots for each species ≥5) to plan PPAs in order to conserve these endangered plants. First, we estimated the potential habitat distributions of 6 orchid species using species distribution models (in the program Maxent). Second, we identified PPAs using the results of both Maxent and systematic conservation planning software (Zonation). We found that the PPAs we identified were all distributed in the eastern, northeastern, and northern parts of the study region on which we focused. We observed that existing nature reserves in those areas were much smaller than the PPAs we identified, suggesting the need for expansion of these zones. Finally, we identified some recommended protection areas based on our PPAs, which we believe are suitable areas of in situ conservation. These areas could assist in the formulation of protection policies for these endangered orchid species. Our results have broad implications for conservation biology and the redefinition of protective zones for at-risk species.     

The principle of complementarity in the design of reserve networks to conserve biodiversity: A preliminary history

Explicit, quantitative procedures for identifying biodiversity priority areas are replacing the often ad hoc procedures used in the past to design networks of reserves to conserve biodiversity. This change facilitates more informed choices by policy makers, and thereby makes possible greater satisfaction of conservation goals with increased efficiency. A key feature of these procedures is the use of the principle of complementarity, which ensures that areas chosen for inclusion in a reserve network complement those already selected. This paper sketches the historical development of the principle of complementarity and its applications in practical policy decisions. In the first section a brief account is given of the circumstances out of which concerns for more explicit systematic methods for the assessment of the conservation value of different areas arose. The second section details the emergence of the principle of complementarity in four independent contexts. The third section consists of case studies of the use of the principle of complementarity to make practical policy decisions in Australasia, Africa, and America. In the last section, an assessment is made of the extent to which the principle of complementarity transformed the practice of conservation biology by introducing new standards of rigor and explicitness.     

Priority areas for conservation of primates in a threatened Amazonian savanna

Primates are globally recognized as an important component of biodiversity, however, more than half of primate species in the world are threatened and agriculture expansion is one of the main threats. Brazil has one of the largest networks of protected areas (PAs) in the world, but there are some conservation gaps, such as the Amazonian savannas. We aim to identify a network of priority areas to conserve a Brazilian Amazonian savanna highly threatened by agriculture expansion, by using seven primate species and four vegetation types as targets. We constructed species distribution models (SDMs) for the primates and used a Systematic Conservation Planning approach. We defined as a quantitative conservation target the proportion of the distribution of each primate species within the network according to traits related to their vulnerability to extinction. In addition, we set a target of including at least 30% of each savanna type within priority areas. We created a map of potential use of the land for agriculture and another of environmental risk, which were included as costs in the decision process, and together with the SDMs and vegetation types, identified the network of priority areas by using the software Marxan. We evaluated the feasibility of implementing conservation actions, such as establishing Conservation Units (e.g. reserves managed by the government), or implementing community-based conservation actions in each priority area. Additionally, we estimated the economic investment (US$/year) required to establish Conservation Units across the priority areas. Conservation targets for primates and vegetation types were met by protecting 3,240 km² of the Savannas of Amapá. An investment of approximately US$958,122/year over five years is required to turn these priority areas into Conservation Units, however, we propose other strategies such as conservation on community lands and public policies. All these strategies would allow for protecting forest cover and the heterogeneous environments that are suitable for primates and other biodiversity components.     

How well do the existing and proposed reserve networks represent vertebrate species in Chile?

Increasingly, biogeographical knowledge and analysis are playing a fundamental role in assessing the representativeness of biodiversity in protected areas, and in identifying critical areas for conservation. With almost 20% of the country assigned to protected areas, Chile is well above the conservation target (i.e. 10–12%) proposed by many international conservation organizations. Moreover, the Chilean government has recently proposed new conservation priority sites to improve the current protected area network. Here, we used all 653 terrestrial vertebrate species present in continental Chile to assess the performance of the existing and proposed reserve networks. Using geographical information systems, we overlaid maps of species distribution, current protected areas, and proposed conservation priority sites to assess how well each species is represented within these networks. Additionally, we performed a systematic reserve selection procedure to identify alternative conservation areas for expanding the current reserve system. Our results show that over 13% of the species are not covered by any existing protected area, and that 73% of Chilean vertebrate species can be considered partial gaps, with only a small fraction of their geographical ranges currently under protection. The coverage is also deficient for endemic (species confined to Chile) and threatened species. While the proposed priority sites do increase coverage, we found that there are still several gaps and these are not the most efficient choices. Both the gap analysis and the reserve selection analysis identified important areas to be added to the existing reserve system, mostly in northern and central Chile. This study underscores the need for a systematic conservation planning approach to redefine the conservation priority sites in order to maximize the representation of species, particularly endemic and threatened species.     

Priority areas for the conservation of subtropical indigenous forest in southern Africa: a case study from KwaZulu-Natal

Southern Africa's subtropical forest biome, though small and highly fragmented, supports much of the region's biodiversity. With limited resources available for conservation and the exploitative use of forest escalating, identifying a network of priority forest reserves is important. We examine the distribution of forest birds, butterflies and mammals in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Using an iterative algorithm we explore the efficiency of existing protected areas, species richness and rarity hotspots, prime forest sites (selected by forest area) and complementary networks as alternative approaches to priority reserve selection, as well as the potential use of indicator taxa. Existing protected areas represent 98% of species but are relatively inefficient in terms of area. Alternative selection criteria represent a high proportion of species (86–92%) and provide efficient bases for developing fully representative reserve networks. All species are represented within a network of 22 complementary quarter degree cells. This network includes several larger forests and existing protected areas and is recommended for priority conservation. Complementary networks identified separately for birds, butterflies and mammals overlap little, but each represents a high proportion of the remaining taxa, supporting their potential as representative 'indicator' taxa. The evolutionary history of the three main forest types in KwaZulu-Natal explains observed spatial patterns of alternative reserve networks. Priority areas are concentrated in scarp and coastal forest belts, regions of comparatively recent evolutionary activity with high species richness. Afromontane forest is older and less diverse, but its inclusion in any reserve network is necessary for the full representation of forest diversity.     

The impact of climate change on the future distribution of priority crop wild relatives in Indonesia and implications for conservation planning

The analysis of climate change impact is essential to include in conservation planning of crop wild relatives (CWR) to provide the guideline for adequate long-term protection under unpredictable future environmental conditions. These resources play an important role in sustaining the future of food security, but the evidence shows that they are threatened by climate change. The current analyses show that five taxa were predicted to have contraction of more than 30 % of their current ranges: Artocarpus sepicanus (based on RCP 4.5 in both no dispersal and unlimited dispersal scenario and RCP 8.5 in no dispersal scenario by 2050), Ficus oleifolia (RCP 4.5 5 in both no dispersal and unlimited dispersal scenario by 2080), Cocos nucifera and Dioscorea alata (RCP 8.5 in both no dispersal and unlimited dispersal scenario by 2050), and Ficus chartacea (RCP 8.5 in both no dispersal and unlimited dispersal scenario by 2050 and 2080). It shows that the climate change impact is species-specific. Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and dispersal scenarios influence the prediction models, and the actual future distribution range of species falls in between those scenarios. Climate refugia, holdout populations, and non-analogue community assemblages were identified based on the Protected Areas (PAs) network. PAs capacity is considered an important element in implementing a conservation strategy for the priority CWR. In areas where PAs are isolated and have less possibility to build corridors to connect each other, such as in Java, unlimited dispersal scenarios are unlikely to be achieved and assisted dispersal is suggested. The holdout populations should be the priority target for the ex situ collection. Therefore, by considering the climate refugia, PAs capacity and holdout populations, the goal of keeping high genetic variations for the long-term conservation of CWR in Indonesia can be achieved.     

森林遗传资源保护研究进展

森林遗传资源的保护事关现代及后代的利益,已引起全球的极大关注,自70年代以来,就地保护与迁地保护作为主要的战略在森林遗传资源保护实践中使用。一般来说森林遗传资源的就地保护可以通过建立自然保护区来实现。迁地保护主要包括种子库、田间基因库、种子园及细胞或组织培养等技术。就地保护和迁地保护应当相互补充,两者结合使用是保存森林遗传多样性的有效方法。对森林遗传资源保护战略的选择以及因贸易而濒危的热带材用树及其保护问题也作了简要评述。     

Seed banking of endangered plants: are we conserving the right species to address climate change?

The increasing awareness of the effects of climate change on plant distributions in situ has made the appropriate application of ex situ techniques more crucial. These ex situ conservation techniques need to be targeted to priority species identified at risk from climate change. The present paper assesses the sensitivity of plant species to climate change in Belgium and explores the current conservation status of those species potentially vulnerable to climate change. We then checked whether these species were included in ex situ collections. The whole Belgian flora has been assessed (a total of 1,396 native plant species). We evaluated whether each of these species occurs in a “climate change-vulnerable” habitat, having therefore a higher probability to be impacted by climate change. The assessment revealed that there are at least 415 native plant species (30% of the Belgian native flora) that appear to be vulnerable to climate change during the next decades. Results also showed that about one-third of the species currently included in the red list may have their situation made potentially worse due to climate change. In addition, depending on the region, between 45 and 67% of the species that are currently not threatened in Belgium are likely to become so due to climate change. It also appeared that only 32% of these climate change-vulnerable species are currently held ex situ. We conclude that there is a need to identify gaps in existing ex situ collections as an urgent priority and ensure that species potentially vulnerable to climate change are conserved ex situ.     

Assessing conservation priorities of xenarthrans in Argentina

In this study, we combine species distribution models with a reserve selection approach to assess the degree of representation of xenarthrans in the existing protected area network of Argentina, and to identify conservation priority areas that may help expand the current system. Species distribution models were developed from species’ occurrence records using a maximum entropy algorithm. Maps of species distributions were produced for 15 of the 16 species currently present in the country. To assess the performance of the existing protected area network in representing all modeled species, and to identify priority areas to expand the current reserve system, we used the software Zonation. Overall, all species modeled are represented in the existing protected area network. However, the percentage of their ranges covered by protected areas is very low (average = 6.7%; range = 1.7–17.6%). To represent at least 5% of the distribution of each species, 8.8% of the country’s area would be needed, and species with restricted ranges have the greatest increase in representation in this scenario. When 10% of the country is set aside for conservation, species representation increases considerably, again favoring range-restricted species. Most of the areas identified as conservation priorities are under strong anthropogenic pressures, including deforestation, agricultural expansion, and hunting. Our analysis provides a preliminary assessment of conservation priorities for the xenarthrans of Argentina, and we hope will serve as guideline to focus future conservation assessments at more refined scales.     

珍稀濒危植物迁地保护策略中植物营养问题的探讨

营养缺乏、过量或不平衡都会直接导致植物生长繁殖障碍甚至死亡,通过改良土壤或补充矿质元素来解决这些问题是植物营养学研究的主要内容。这一学科的研究范围已经从传统人工生态系统发展到自然生态系统中。但总的来说,这一学科还没有真正渗透到珍稀濒危物种的迁地保护领域中来。中国各植物园目前正在开展大规模的珍稀濒危植物迁地保护工作,但人们都只重视了物种的引入,却忽视了它们在迁地保护过程中业已存在和可预见的生长繁殖障碍,对迁地保护植物的研究很少涉及其生长繁殖所需的营养条件。针对这一现状,本文提出了目前应开展的几项工作:(1)明确优先开展植物营养学研究的物种范围;(2)物种原产地土壤与植物化学元素背景值的分析;(3)迁地保护物种营养状况动态监测与营养诊断。该研究思路的提出,无论是从植物营养学与植物保育学的学科交叉角度,还是从珍稀濒危物种迁地保护保育策略的理论探索与解决实际问题的角度,都具有十分重要的意义。