Diversity Seek -- Crop diversity for food security
mike's SOS Bishop Presentation
1. Mike Stefancic, an SCA intern,
spent the 2004 field season
collecting seeds for the Bishop,
CA Field Office through the
Seeds of Success program.
Seeds of Success is a partnership with
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew coordinated
by the Plant Conservation Alliance.
2. WWhhaatt iiss SSeeeeddss ooff SSuucccceessss??
• A Partnership
• A Seed Collection Protocol
• A Collection of Seed for the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew Millennium Seed Bank
• A Collection of Seed for Local Restoration
Projects
8. BLM Offices wwiitthh SSCCAA TTeeaammss iinn 22000044
• Bishop, CA
• Kanab, UT
• Denver, CO
• Carson City, NV
• Fort Ord, CA
• Phoenix, AZ
• Pocatello, ID
13. DDaattaa CCoolllleeccttiioonn
• Detailed location
information
• Population and seed
quality assessment
• Habitat and
associated species
• Collection details
14. Herbarium specimens will be
collected, prepared, and given to:
• Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew
• Smithsonian
Institution
• Rancho Santa
Ana Botanic
Garden
• Bishop Field
Office
15. AA CCoolllleeccttiioonn ooff SSeeeeddss ffrroomm
NNaattiivvee PPllaanntt PPooppuullaattiioonnss
Western eupatorium (Ageratina
occidentalis)
Coffeeberry (Frangula californica)
• Trees, shrubs, forbs, and
grasses
17. Species wwiitthh FFoorraaggee oorr BBrroowwssee
VVaalluuee
• Plants that provide
wildlife habitat
• Species important
to common grazers,
browsers and
declining wildlife
Green Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus
viscidiflorus)
25. SSppeecciieess nnoott iinncclluuddeedd iinn tthhee pprroojjeecctt
• Species with rare, threatened or endangered
status
• Agricultural or food crop species
• Non-native species
26. BBiisshhoopp TTeeaamm AAccccoommpplliisshhmmeennttss
ffoorr 22000044
• 42 collections completed from list of 50
target species
• 6 additional collections for research at the
Berry Botanic Garden in Portland, Oregon
• Publicized the SOS project with articles in
the CNPS Bristlecone Chapter newsletter
and the Inyo Register
27. WWhhaatt iiss SSeeeeddss ooff SSuucccceessss??
• A Partnership
• A Seed Collection Protocol
• A Collection of Seed for the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew Millennium Seed Bank
28. RRooyyaall BBoottaanniicc GGaarrddeennss,, KKeeww
Mission: To enable better management of the
Earth's environment by increasing knowledge and
understanding of the plant and fungal kingdoms - the
basis of life on earth.
29. TThhee MMiilllleennnniiuumm SSeeeedd BBaannkk
PPrroojjeecctt OObbjjeeccttiivveess
• Ex situ seed conservation
• Promote seed conservation research
• Transfer seed technology to partners
• Educate and involve public
30. Millennium Seed Bank: Royal Botanic Gardens
Wakehurst Place, Ardingly, Near Haywards Heath
West Sussex, UK
31. TThhee sseeeedd wwiillll bbee uusseedd ffoorr::
• Conservation and
germination research
• Restoration projects
• Safeguard against
extinction
Seed collections are fully dried and
placed in air tight containers prior
to storage at -20°c.
32. TThhee GGooaall::
To collect at least one
population seed sample from
24,200 non-domesticated
species, principally from
drylands, by 2010.
35. BBLLMM aanndd KKeeww PPrroojjeecctt
CCoommmmiittmmeennttss
• Work cooperatively to facilitate collection,
study and conservation of seed from the U.S.
• Develop annual work plans
• Work together to seek additional funds for
plant conservation
• Work through the Plant Conservation Alliance
36. BBLLMM wwiillll::
• Grant access and coordinate collection of
seeds
• Send seeds to Kew for cleaning, processing,
germination testing, and long term storage
• Seek additional funds
• Hire a coordinator to work with Kew to
develop a collecting program in the United
States
37. EExx ssiittuu aanndd IInn ssiittuu
CCoonnsseerrvvaattiioonn
As a land managing
agency, the BLM
mission is thought of
as practicing in situ
conservation. The
Seeds of Success
project promotes
complementary use
of both types of
conservation.
38. KKeeww wwiillll::
• Fund a coordinator position in BLM for
2001 and 2002
• Provide training and advice in seed
collection and conservation
• Clean, process, test, and store seed from
BLM
• Provide BLM with data from the collections
and results of testing
• Send 50% of the seed to USDA
39. WWhhaatt iiss SSeeeeddss ooff SSuucccceessss??
• A Partnership
• A Seed Collection Protocol
• A Collection of Seed for the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew Millennium Seed Bank
• A Collection of Seed for the ARS Native
Plant Germplasm Collection
40. USDA-AAggrriiccuullttuurraall RReesseeaarrcchh SSeerrvviiccee
WWeesstteerrnn RReeggiioonnaall
PPllaanntt IInnttrroodduuccttiioonn SSttaattiioonn
• Located at Washington
State University in
Pullman, WA
• Mission: To acquire,
maintain, evaluate,
document and distribute
the germplasm of over
2,600 plant species from
376 genera.
41. The BLM is in the
process of working out
an agreement with the
station regarding
storage and
distribution of seed
collected through
Seeds of Success.
42. WWhhaatt iiss SSeeeeddss ooff SSuucccceessss??
• A Partnership
• A Seed Collection Protocol
• A Collection of Seed for the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew Millennium Seed Bank
• A Collection of Seed for the ARS Native
Plant Germplasm Collection
• A Collection of Seed for Local Restoration
Projects
43. BBiisshhoopp FFiieelldd OOffffiiccee
RReessttoorraattiioonn PPrroojjeeccttss
• Deepest Valley Cooperative Native Plant
Propagation Center
• Round Valley Mule Deer Winter Range
• Fish Slough Hill Climb
• Long Valley Alkali Meadow and Hot Tub
45. CCooooppeerraattoorrss
• BLM Bishop Field Office
• California Native Plant Society
• University of California – White Mountain
Research Station
• Inyo County Water Department
• Inyo National Forest
• Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
47. PPrroojjeecctt GGooaallss
• To provide site-specific plant material for
small scale revegetation projects
• To enhance appreciation of the benefits
native plants have in local landscape design
• To increase educational opportunities for
local schools and universities in the field of
restoration
48.
49. CCaalliiffoorrnniiaa NNaattiivvee PPllaanntt SSoocciieettyy ––
BBrriissttlleeccoonnee CChhaapptteerr
• Collections for Annual
Native Plant Sale
• Seed packets of local
native species
• Work day at DeDecker
Garden at Eastern
California History Museum
52. Credits
• Slides 11 & 12 – Pictures and map from www.ca.blm.gov/bishop/index.html
• Slides 18,20,26,27 – Pictures from CALFLORA database
• Slides 31,33-36 – Pictures from www.rbgkew.org.uk/msbp/index/html
• Slide 28 & 43 – Pictures from
www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archivefeb03/germ0203.htm
• Slides 47 & 58 – Pictures courtesy of Anne S. Halford
• Slide 49 – Picture from www.wmrs.wdu/facilities/OVL/default.htm
• Slide 51 – Picture from
www.bristleconecnps.org/Native%20Plant%20Sale/1997.htm
Editor's Notes
This presentation was originally put together by Carol Spurrier. She sent it to Sarah McCullough and Kate Pavich, the SCA interns who worked at the Bishop Field Office for SOS in 2003, and they adapted it to their work and presented it to the Bishop Field Office in October 2003. Kate Pavich then spent six weeks in the Washington Office, where she presented this version with the last section about Restoration Projects in Bishop. The last section contains pictures and information from two powerpoint presentations and a paper by Anne Halford, the Bishop Field Office website, and the California Native Plant Society Bristlecone Chapter website.
The Project Partners and their roles
The collection protocol and how it was carried out in Bishop, CA in 2003
SOS is the U.S. part of the international project, the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew
SOS also gives seed to the Agricultural Research Service for its working germplasm collection
Seed is collected for the field office for use in restoration projects and will give 4 examples of projects in the Bishop Field Office
Kew is home to the Millennium Seed Bank Project. BLM is one of 3 main partners in this project. The CPC is collecting seeds for BLM. The USFS is allowing access to their land for collections by the BLM. NFWF is providing funding. Bend is cleaning seeds. SCA is hiring and training interns and placing them with BLM field offices. USDA is accepting and storing seeds.
PCA promotes native plant conservation in the U.S. and coordinates the partnership between BLM and Kew. Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and various native plant societies and botanical gardens are doing collections for BLM. NatureServe produced a report on the ecoregional distribution of target species for SOS, Kate entered this data while working in the WO.
The purpose of SOS is to establish a high quality, accurately identified and well documented native species seed collection at the population level for long term storage and to support development of geographically appropriate native plant materials for restoration. It is the first program in the U.S. to support long term conservation storage of all common native plant species.
Seeds of Success uses the ecoregions outlined by the Nature Conservancy. Lists of species in each region are compiled and put on the SOS website. From these lists, Carol Spurrier and staff at the BLM Field Office or partner organization agree on a list of target species for each collection team.
SCA interns are supervised by the office botanist or botany program lead and in some cases another staff member or contractor with experience in seed collection and plant identification.
The Bishop Field Office manages approximately 750,000 acres.
The land is sandwiched between the 1.6 million acres managed by the Inyo National Forest in the Sierra Nevada and White and Inyo Mountains, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s 310,000 acres of the valley floor. Private land comprises 2% in Inyo County and 6% in Mono County. Three ecoregions and three California Floristic Provinces converge here – the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin and Northern Mojave Desert. 35% of California’s 6300 known plant species occur in Inyo and Mono Counties, so Bishop is a great place for a collecting team.
Anne Halford is the field office Botanist in Bishop. She worked with Carol Spurrier to secure funding and put together the list of target species She provided books, maps, supplies and support. She came out into the field with the interns about once a week to show them populations and to help collect seeds. She also hired Karen Ferrell-Ingram, a native plant propagator and seed collector who works with the BLM, Inyo County, and CA Native Plant Society Bristlecone Chapter. Karen supervised the interns in the field everyday, taught them the plants, how and when to collect seeds, and did a lot of the collecting and measuring.
The team identified a population of at least 50 individuals for each species and collected 10,000 to 20,000 good, viable seeds. Seed quality was determined by taking a small, representative sample and cutting them open to see if the endosperm was empty or developed and to see if there was any insect damage.
Using a project field data form, interns recorded GPS data and directions to each site, the area of the population and approximate number of individuals in the population, habitat and associated species, the actual area and number of individuals sampled and the seed quality.
Four herbarium specimens were taken for each collection to insure accurate identification of each species. Every team sends their specimens to Kew, Kew keeps one, sends one to the Smithsonian, one to the regional herbarium – for Bishop this was the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden Herbarium in Claremont, CA, and one is sent back to the field office. Interns also took digital photographs of each species. These pictures are of the Las Vegas crew pressing a specimen and 2 of their pressed specimens.
SOS lists include Native trees, shrubs, forbs, and grasses. The following slides contains examples of plants collected by the Bishop team in 2003.
In addition to providing seeds to Kew, a priority is to obtain geographically appropriate seeds for restoration. Kew only wants one subspecies or variety per species, but SOS will be collecting multiple subspecies and varieties for germplasm in the U.S.
In addition to being useful for restoration, plants are assigned to the following categories:
Mono beardtongue is only found in Inyo and Mono counties.
Species where there is only one genus in the family, or one species in the genus. Ephedra is the only genus in its family.
Stems from greasewood were used for spear shafts.
Narrow leaf milkweed flowers and a monarch butterfly caterpillar.
There are rare species in this family- Scrophulariaceae- and rare species in the genus Castilleja.
Cobweb thistle- which was not on our list but was collected by another team in California- is related to bull thistle, an invasive weed.
Easily recognizable species like primrose. Better examples are state flowers.
These are the things that we will target through a series of meetings in the west as species that we want to collect by ecoregion. We will use the Ecoregions as defined by the Nature Conservancy.
So how do we plan to implement this new mandate in BLM?
A certain number of species have been assigned to each State office to collect. Some will be done internally by BLM staff and some will be done through partnerships.
I’d like to go through some of the most important partnerships that we have made and are working on to date.
Rare, threatened, and endangered species are collected by the Center for Plant Conservation.
All the seed accounted for on the data sheets was shipped to the Millennium Seed Bank.
The Millennium Seed Bank Project is based at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The first garden was established at Kew in 1759. Today Kew consists of 300 acres of buildings and grounds and was named a world heritage site in 2003. The RBG also manages two other sites, Surrey and Wakehurst Place. Wakehurst Place is the location of the Millennium Seed Bank.
Objectives: Off site seed conservation, conducting research into the best ways to keep seeds viable in long term storage and conducting germination tests. Supply partners with results of these tests – 12/03 BLM received results of germination test for 85 species. The project relies heavily on volunteers – SCA interns are technically volunteers and many seed cleaners at Wakehurst Place are volunteers.
The Millennium Seed Bank building. It contains an underground vault for storage. The building is open to the public and has seed research and processing labs with glass walls and an exhibit about seed conservation and the project. It also has a very long address that interns write out by hand on Air waybills and invoices for shipments. Most of the funding came from the Millennium Commission, a distributor of UK lottery money. The Wellcome Trust, a medical charity, funded the building. An anonymous donor from the U.S. provided $1 million for conservation of seed from the U.S.
From each collection some seed will be used right away for research, some used as needed for restoration, some stored long term.
The goal – to collect 10% of the world’s plant species by 2010. As of July 4, 2003 the seed bank had 6,655 species, or 2.8%. They already have 98% of the UK’s flowering plants. Dryland species are being targeted because they are best suited for the treatments used in long term storage- drying and freezing. The seeds will remain viable for about 200 years. The map shows the world’s drylands, including the western U.S. Quote from Kew’s website in response to the frequently asked question – Is it right to conserve one seed sample per species? “A significant amount of genetic variation for a species will be found within one populations sample. This is not to say that one such sample will be a sufficient conservation measure, just that it is a good first step.” It is the eventual aim of the project to collect more of the genetic diversity within each species.
A partial list of the 16 countries participating in 2003. Kew has separate agreements with each government and partner organizations in each country. Many countries are centering their collections around rare and endangered species and crop relatives.
SOS is the project that resulted from an agreement between Kew and BLM signed in May 2000. Because of the focus on drylands, BLM was an obvious choice for a U.S. partner.
BLM and Kew agreed to work together on the collection and conservation of plant species in the U.S. They are cooperating on the planning and finding funding for the project.
BLM agreed to grant access to their land and coordinate seed collection. To date (12/03) BLM is the biggest contributor to the Millennium Seed Bank. 600 of the 900 species received in 2002 came from the BLM. BLM also organized field crews, maintains a master list of species to prevent overlap between crews, arranged for overseas shipping of plant materials and finds additional funding. They hired a coordinator to do all these things – Carol Spurrier in the Washington Office.
BLM’s Mission of serving current and future publics and of maintaining and restoring functioning ecosystems is thought of as trying to practice in situ conservation, in the way we balance our multiple use and sustained yield mandate. Studying things and managing them out side of their natural environment is ex situ conservation and is thought of as the type of conservation that we do at zoos, botanic gardens and aquaria.
The complementary use of both ex-situ and in-situ conservation is essential to safeguard threatened wild plant species and at risk plant communities. Ex-situ conservation is particularly important for those plant species under imminent threat that are unlikely to be conserved by protection and management interventions alone. Seed collecting for off site conservation, planting bitterbrush for on site conservation.
Kew funded Carol Spurrier’s position in 2001 and 2002.
They also process seed, test for viability and germination rates, and put the seeds in long-term storage.
They send half of the seed back to the USDA.
Federal agencies are encouraged to enter into agreements with the USDA Agricultural Research Service to add native plant species important for stabilization, rehabilitation and restoration to the ARS working germplasm collection.
Western Regional Germplasm Center is located in Pullman, WA.
The Plant Conservation Alliance encourages collection of seeds locally and working with growers in the community to increase that seed for use in local restoration projects.
The first project is a propagation center, rather than a restoration site, that supplies plants for the other projects. The three restoration sites are on BLM land and are all very different. Round Valley is at the foot of the Sierras, Fish Slough is in the Volcanic tablelands and Long Valley is north of Bishop and contains an alkai meadow.
The propagation center is a few miles outside of Bishop at the University of California White Mountain Research Station. It was created in 1996 with funding from BLM damaged lands funds and an Off-Highway Vehicle Habitat Improvement Grant. Additional funding comes from the center’s cooperators.
The first goal is met by collecting seeds locally and growing plants for restoration projects. This reduces genetic contamination and loss of key physiological adaptations and increases plant survivorship.
The second goal is met through the CNPS Bristlecone chapter annual native plant sale. Kate and Sarah made collections for the plant sale. Seeds from those collections will be used to grow plants for future years and were also made into wildflower mixes and sold at the 2003 sale. It was the first time local wildflower seed mixes had been available in this area. The chapter also has a native plant garden at the Eastern California History Museum in Independence, CA. Kate and Sarah planted and helped install irrigation lines and exclosures at that site.
For more information, contact the BLM coordinator, Carol Spurrier.
