ISSN: 0967-8018 KewOctober 2007 Issue 32 Scientist N EWS FROM T HE L IVING C OLLECTIONS, THE H ERBARIUM AND T HE L ABORATORIES AT K EW & WAKEHURST P LACE VEGETATION MAPPING n 11 October 2007, an ‘Atlas of the Publication of the Atlas coincides with the Vegetation of Madagascar’ was implementation of the Durban Vision, an O launched in Antananarivo, unprecedented effort in Madagascar’s history Madagascar, in a ceremony attended by to expand the country’s protected area Tovondriaka Rakotobe (Secrétaire Général; network. The authors of the Atlas warn that Ministère de l’Environment, des Eaux et Forêts, only 18% of Madagascar’s primary native Madagascar) and Prof. Stephen Hopper vegetation remains intact and that a third (Director, RBG Kew). The Atlas, in both French of Madagascar’s primary vegetation and English, provides the most up to date and has disappeared since the 1970s. highest quality vegetation mapping available Western humid forest is rarest for Madagascar and represents a conservation and least protected whereas tool that will help Madagascar’s government tapia forest is currently and people plan a more sustainable future. disappearing the most rapidly. Such information is Madagascar is one of the world's most necessary if the flora of important biodiversity hotspots. About 90% Madagascar is to be of its 10,000 plant species are endemic, and protected and managed natural vegetation ranges from rainforest to sustainably, and the Atlas has unique spiny forest. In common with many already been used to help other tropical countries, the flora is extremely prioritise areas for protection threatened not only by habitat destruction but through the Durban Vision also, for some species, by over-collection for Process. In the future it will be the horticultural trade. the baseline against which The Atlas is a product of a three-year the effectiveness of the Madagascar Vegetation Mapping project protected areas network (www.vegmad.org), funded by the Critical will be measured. Ecosystem Partnership Fund and managed by Contact: Justin Moat Kew, Missouri Botanical Garden and ([email protected]) Conservation International’s Centre for Applied Biodiversity Science. The project used remote-sensing technology together with data provided by specialists from a wide range of collaborating botanical and conservation institutions to produce the most thoroughly ground-truthed vegetation map ever compiled for Madagascar. Through a series of workshops with the conservation community, Atlas of the Vegetation of the project also ensured that the Atlas was of Madagascar (Eds J. Moat & maximum relevance and utility to conservation P. Smith); Kew Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978 1 84246 198 3; £80 planners and managers. available from www.kewbooks.com Montserrat Vegetation Map Finalised vegetation map of Madagascar. Enlarged sections show The Caribbean island of Montserrat was devastated by a huge volcanic eruption in the detail and progress of the map from satellite images (top) to classified 1997. A new vegetation map has been completed as part of the Darwin Initiative image (centre) to final map (bottom). project ‘Enabling the People of Montserrat to Conserve the Centre Hills’. As a result of extensive fieldwork undertaken during this project, planners and conservationists now have an accurate vegetation map and tool to help guide the island’s recovery. Species and habitat monitoring continues to identify the most important areas for plant diversity. Contacts: Martin Hamilton ([email protected]), Dr Colin Clubbe ([email protected]) 1 DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE Kew and Restoration Ecology Plant-based solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change hold considerable promise and need SCIENCE-BASED urgent attention. They go well beyond the present focus on the use of biofuels CONSERVATION and plantation forestry. Caring for remaining A. McRobb / RBG Kew wild vegetation is arguably critical in this context. Fully a fifth of present carbon emissions are due to ongoing deforestation Barcoding of Plants Molecular Markers and altered land use. Consequently, an The use of a standardised, short region of Developing molecular markers for improved understanding of remaining wild DNA (a DNA barcode) to identify unknown conservation genetic studies of threatened vegetation to enhance its conservation is the samples of animals, plants and fungi has species is costly and time-consuming. first aim of a new global plant conservation received a great deal of attention in the past Therefore conservation geneticists often partnerships programme upon which the few years, and generated extensive attempt to use markers already available for Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has embarked. controversy. In the last two years most of the related, better studied taxa. Three PhD controversies have been addressed, and students working at Kew have found that Recognising the importance of wild plant several barcoding projects are now well- cross-species transferability of highly variable diversity and setting aside protected areas are advanced and producing exciting results (e.g. ‘microsatellite’ DNA markers is clearly greater two of the first steps possible from outputs of in Canada; www.bolnet.ca). in animals than in flowering plants and the plant-science powerhouse that Kew transfer success was greater in eudicots than provides. The organisation recognises that it Most of the activity has focused on animals; monocots. Cross-species transferability must get much better at repairing and plant barcoding has lagged behind because appeared highest in species with long restoring wild vegetation if persistence the standard marker used in animals shows generation times and mixed or outcrossing through climate change is to happen and insufficient variation in plants and there has breeding systems; success was also higher if biodiversity is to be conserved. been a lack of clear vision about which genome size in the target species was small alternative is best. Several projects have All wild vegetation faces the prospect of compared to the source. The results provide focused on this topic, including one led by continuing decline due to human pressures on conservation geneticists with clues about RBG Kew involving 11 institutes. This group the landscape, directly or through climate whether cross-species transfer of genetic proposes the use of three regions of plastid change. It has become clear that we need a markers should be attempted for new species DNA in land plants because no single region much-improved understanding of how plant under study or whether novel markers will is variable enough to be successful across all communities may be repaired and restored need to be developed. Molecular Ecology 16, taxa. Taxon 56, 295 (2007). when damaged if they are to remain the 3759 (2007). fundamentally important carbon sinks that Contact: Prof. Mark Chase ([email protected]) Contact: Dr Christian Lexer ([email protected]) help to moderate the worst aspects of climate change. This is a major new focus for RBG Kew, pushing its scientific direction into urgently needed but relatively uncharted Taxonomic Exaggeration and Orchid Conservation research waters. Orchids are a key group in efforts to establish Europe, where new species are still being reserves in which many other species of less described every year and taxonomic treatments Successful repair and restoration relies charismatic plants and animals are also vary drastically. By comparing a checklist of fundamentally on a scientific understanding protected. However, orchid conservation is orchids from Europe and other areas and of the environments and requirements for beset by taxonomic problems, particularly in searching for geographical patterns, it was plants to complete their life cycles in complex found that numbers of invalid, infraspecific and communities, from seed through seedling to R. Bateman Dactylorhiza lapponica, hybrid names are much higher in Europe. adult plant and senescence. Botanic gardens the subject of a UK government action plan Recognition of numerous and poorly are places already established with staff that until it was found to be circumscribed orchid taxa is a serious obstacle have many of the requisite skills in hand. indistinguishable from the more widespread to their conservation because rare, poorly If a world-class research programme of this D. traunsteineri. defined species may be prioritized for kind is not pursued, ongoing attrition of wild conservation over taxonomically ‘good’ species. vegetation will occur, even where it has been More taxonomic effort should be made in set aside in protected areas. The loss of the other areas of the world (e.g. the tropics), and world’s largest and most economical carbon European botanists should hesitate to describe sinks through this process will exacerbate the new orchid taxa without conducting more worst effects of climate change. We cannot thorough genetic investigations. Conservation afford to let this happen. Biology 21, 263 (2007). Prof. Stephen D. Hopper FLS, Director Contact: Prof. Mark Chase ([email protected]) 2 Kew’s new mission statement, ‘to inspire and deliver science-based conservation worldwide, enhancing the quality of life,’ emphasises the role that Kew’s scientific research has to play in supporting conservation efforts. Restoration Ecology I. Parkinson GSPC Under Review Southdown sheep grazing outside the Welcome Trust Millennium Building. The twelfth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Conservation Grazing Seed Size Matters