NEWSFOCUS on September 13, 2010 Tending the Global Garden By sorting out plant names and growing threatened species, botanic gardens try to do their part for plant conservation In 2008, Gustavo Martinelli was worried. the end of 2009, and over the Christmas hol- cesses and failures at protecting biodiversity www.sciencemag.org Six years earlier, his country, Brazil, had iday, the Web site where people were submit- as the convention promised (see p. 1272). In signed onto an international plant conser- ting their responses was abuzz with activity. addition to leading efforts to tally the world’s vation initiative, and the fi rst order of busi- “It was very amazing to see everyone trying plants, botanic gardens have made progress ness was to develop a comprehensive list of to do their part,” says Martinelli. in setting up seed banks and native plant the nation’s plants by 2010. The last such Thanks to that effort, Brazil is now one collections. In some cases, they have even list of Brazil’s flora, completed in 1906, of the few countries that can boast of hav- reintroduced endangered species back into took 60 years to put together. But less than ing an online database where researchers, native habitats. 2 years from the deadline, work on the new conservationists, and the public can exam- For some plant afi cionados, however, too Downloaded from tally hadn’t even started, recalls Martinelli, ine the distribution and other information little has been accomplished. Botanic gar- a taxonomist at the Rio de Janeiro Botanical about each plant, some 41,000 species. dens and other organizations have strug- Garden. And if this initial task fell behind Brazil’s taxonomists aren’t the only ones gled to identify which plants are threatened. schedule, it would push back other key who have been hustling. As part of the same Moreover, despite some progress, the gar- goals of the conservation initiative, such as initiative—the Global Strategy for Plant dens are far from achieving the collections fi guring out which plants were threatened Conservation—that motivated Martinelli, and restoration goals incorporated into CBD. and safeguarding a certain percentage of botanists and computer experts from the “It doesn’t look like we’ve made signifi cant those at risk. “There will never be a good Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the United progress,” says W. John Kress, a botanist at endangered species list if we can’t have a Kingdom and the Missouri Botanical Garden the Smithsonian National Museum of Natu- list of the fl ora,” Martinelli says. in St. Louis are striving to fi nalize a list of ral History, who worries that the ongoing So Martinelli and botanical garden col- the known plant species in the world before destruction of plant habitats, compounded by league Rafaela Forzza rallied 413 taxono- the year’s end. climate change, dwarfs any plant conserva- mists from Brazil and elsewhere for what The rush is because 2010 looms large as tion advances made by having these targets. seemed at fi rst like an impossible push. In a the deadline for this and many other goals set But others say the very process of estab- matter of months, they were to check through forth in the Convention on Biological Diver- lishing goals has had an impact. “Without the names gathered from regional plant lists, sity (CBD), an international treaty on the those targets, an awful lot less plant conserva- picking out the correct names for each spe- conservation of fl ora and fauna worldwide tion would have been achieved,” asserts Peter cies and sorting out all synonyms, to come (Science, 14 January 2005, p. 212). Conser- Wyse Jackson, who just became president of up with a master record. The due date was vationists are now taking stock of their suc- the Missouri Botanical Garden. GARDEN OMAN BOTANIC CREDIT: 1274 10 SEPTEMBER 2010 VOL 329 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS CONSERVING BIODIVERSITY | NEWSFOCUS Planting seeds. At the Oman Botanic Garden, students learn how plants keep nature in balance. A new purpose for botanic gardens Plant conservation hasn’t always been part of the mission of botanic gardens. They got their start in the 16th and 17th centuries as homes to medicinal plants and later as places to cul- tivate newly discovered species brought back from worldwide explorations. Until recently, the key scientifi c activity for many botanic gardens was merely collecting and labeling seeds and plants. The idea that such gardens should look beyond their walls and fences to help preserve plants in their native habitats emerged slowly. “Traditionally, many botanic gardens have been somewhat resistant to [hav- ing] conservation as a main activity,” says Peter Raven, retired president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Cold storage. The Millennium Seed Bank hopes to have 25% of the known plants preserved by 2020. That has now changed. Botanic gardens have come to play a pivotal role in standing up Jackson. Botanic gardens were not in a posi- been going through their records and the for plants, in part because few other organiza- tion to work on all the targets; they had no botanical literature, plant family by plant tions were willing to devote time and money control over whether agricultural lands were family, trying to come up with a master list to plant protection. “There’s been a fundamen- managed sustainably, for example. But they of plants with their synonyms sorted out. But tal shift in botanic garden policies over the last saw themselves as key players in developing it was slow going, and little additional fund- on September 13, 2010 2 decades,” says Wyse Jackson. Many, though a list of all known plants, assessing the con- ing turned up to do the work. By 2007, “it not all, gardens now place a much greater servation status of plants, establishing so- was obvious that going at the pace we were emphasis on conservation, plant genetics, and called ex situ collections and recovery pro- going, we wouldn’t get there,” recalls Kew educating the public about the importance of grams, and education. taxonomist and public policy expert Eimear preserving plant biodiversity. More gardens Nic Lughadha. are also adding collections of native plants to Making lists Then Chuck Miller, a bioinformatics complement their exotic species. The fi rst order of business, coming up with expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, A turning point came in 1999, at the Inter- a catalog of the world’s plants, is harder had an idea: Let computers fi gure out the www.sciencemag.org national Botanical Congress in St. Louis. than it sounds. The same plant may wind confl icting names. The taxonomists “started There, Raven appealed to the broader botan- up with multiple genus and species names off thinking there was no way you could do ical community and was cheered when he as people in different places, or at different this,” he recalls. But Miller gradually con- called for a global initiative to save plants. By times, describe it without realizing they’re vinced them that a computer-generated list 2002, botanists, policymakers, and other inter- documenting something already named. of plants, while imperfect, would provide a ested parties had come up with the As a result, there are about a “good enough” starting point for conserva- Global Strategy for Plant Conser- million names on record for an tionists, one that could be improved upon Online Downloaded from vation: 16 specifi c targets or goals estimated 370,000 or so plants. over time by in-person evaluations. ranging from a worldwide list of sciencemag.org Sorting out these synonyms The plan was to pool and compare exist- plants to conserving plants and Podcast interview is tedious work, and not glamor- ing digitized plant lists, including a world with author educating the public. That same Elizabeth Pennisi. ous enough to attract much fund- checklist that Kew had been pulling together, year, national delegates approved ing. But without knowing all of a and Tropicos, a database started at the Mis- incorporating the strategy as part of CBD. particular plant’s synonyms, conservationists souri Botanical Garden in 1982. The research- This conservation initiative “brought would be unable to determine the full range ers also made use of the International Plant everyone into a common framework” around of a species or whether it is truly rare. And Names Index, which for more than a century which efforts could be organized, says Sara that leads to poor conservation planning, has collected all plant names. Oldfi eld, secretary general for Botanic Gar- says Kew bioinformatician Robert Allkin. These various lists contain multiple dens Conservation International (BGCI), an For example, a Kew conservation project names for many species, each designating a umbrella organization of the gardens, based has taken a close look at the plants named main name and synonyms. When the proj- in Richmond, United Kingdom. And for the on Botswana’s offi cial Red List of Threat- ect’s computer program spots inconsistencies fi rst time, CBD had concrete goals—with a ened Species. It found that 40% of the names between the lists as to which name is the pri- 2010 deadline. had problems, ranging from spelling errors mary one versus a synonym, it uses predeter- Reaching those goals, in the time allot- to a plant that looked to be endangered but, mined rules to decide which one is correct. For ted, would be a tall order, everyone realized. when all its synonyms were taken into con- example, the program considers more recent “We knew they were all very challenging sideration, was really quite common in the information better than older data, because targets that went well beyond what could be African country.