Living collections of botanic gardens as a means of ex situ conservation : a case study of African Violets (Saintpaulia) in Europe

In all plant conservation, the priority is to maintain wild populations in situ (on site), which means that plants are conserved within their natural environment. Sometimes, as in the case of severely endangered Saintpaulia H. Wendl. (African violets), this is however, no sufficient. In that case, ex situ (off site) conservation in the form of live and in vitro collections and seed banks is necessary. In recent years, the role of botanic gardens in conservation and reintroduction of threatened plants, has been increasingly recognized. Botanic gardens throughout the world possess large living collections of species and accessions, but only vague assumptions of the utility of them in ex situ conservation have been made thus far. Whole plants, when kept ex situ, have advantages in education, research and display. On the other hand, living collections have the disadvantage of high maintenance costs, including high spatial requirements. Thus, usually only one or few genotypes are represented. The goal of this study is to evaluate botanic garden live collections as a means of ex situ conservation with the genus Saintpaulia as a case study. As a result, an ex situ conservation plan for Saintpaulia is outlined. Workability of a network ex situ conservation activity in botanic gardens is also evaluated. Four of the five most important European Saintpaulia holders were chosen as target botanic gardens: Helsinki University Botanic Garden (Finland), The National Botanic Garden of Belgium, The Botanic Garden of Uppsala University (Sweden) and the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh (UK). The wild Saintpaulia collections of the gardens were reviewed and the identifications checked. Botanic garden databases were examined to trace clone accessions. Leaf cuttings from wild-collected accessions were planted in Helsinki University Botanic Garden. Of the total 183 Saintpaulia accessions of the four target gardens 155 (85 %) were unique, and 126 of these were of known wild origin. They were chosen to ex situ conservation collection. Due to the varying quality of the data of origin of the accessions, five classes for the different quality of origin data were developed. European botanic garden living collections of Saintpaulia proved to be a workable base of ex situ conservation for the genus. The amount of space needed to conserve the ideal of at least 50 unique accessions of each of the 26 Saintpaulia taxa is best possible to organize with the network ex situ conservation programme: each accession will be stored in at least two botanic gardens, but no garden will have all the accessions. Saintpaulia is an ideal genus for living ex situ collections: it is beautiful and well-known, small-sized and easy to grow and propagate. New ex situ accessions will be collected from the wild and finally reintroduced to their natural habitats. Further research needs to be carried out to find out the proper seed banking mechanisms for probably orthodox but dust-like seeds of Saintpaulia species. The lack of research on the basic biology and the population ecology of the genus hampers effective conservation work. Collaboration with amenity horticulture and the home countries of Saintpaulia is planned to utilize the genetic diversity of wild African violets in breeding new cultivars

Ex Situ Conservation of Native Plant Species in Europe: The Ensconet Consortium

Peer reviewe

The first draft genome of Blasia pusilla using SMRT sequencing

Comparative genomic information has been used to understand the key transitions of embryophyte evolution, such as terrestrialization resulting in various innovations driven by genetic changes. However, how these traits evolved is not yet understood, largely due to a paucity of information from early divergent groups. In embryophytes, much of the focus has been on understanding genetic adaptation and molecular evolution of specialized angiosperms. The liverwort Blasia pusilla, representing one of the basal clades of embryophytes, has been studied to identify the genetic basis of traits that potentially led to the success of the embryophytes. In the present poster, we present the first draft assembly of the Blasia pusilla genome, based on single molecule read sequencing (PACBIO-SMRT). The draft genome has been assembled using 1,781,918 PacBio reads after filtering contaminating organelle and symbiotic reads from a total of 1,997,826 sequenced reads. The genome assembly and comparative assessment of various approaches for assembly will be presented.Peer reviewe

First draft genome assembly of Coleochaete orbicularis

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Gametophytic transcriptomics of an early embryophyte (Blasia pusilla) and comparative landscape of gametophyte evolution

Transcriptomics plays a central role in understanding the genetic underpinning of post-transcriptional regulation. In recent years, transcriptomics has not only acted as a model for unraveling post-transcriptional regulatory events but has also provided a basis for species-level comparative transcriptomics. In the absence of genomic data, transcriptomics not only allows for de-novo phylo-transcriptomics but also enables the detection of specific genes, which are specific to certain lineages or clades. We present the first reference gametophytic transcriptome of Blasia pusilla sequenced using Illumina Next-Seq with the aim of unravelling the gametophytic transcriptomics of an early embryophyte. We also highlight the role of transcriptomics in identifying early genes and possible phylogenetic pressures on ancestral gene evolution across embryophytes (land plants).Peer reviewe

Mitogenomics of Blasia pusilla as a tool for agricultural productivity

Agricultural productivity is a growing concern and several key genomes have been sequenced with the goal of exploring how traits of genomic adaptation could be transferred to cultivated crops, this having been the cornerstone of crop research. Much of the focus has been on crop species that have been directly used to address human needs, considering projected population growth up until 2050 and beyond. However, it is likely that a deeper understanding of mechanisms that could be used to engineer crops will come from the study of early embryophytes (land plants) and closely related freshwater green algae, traits from which could be exploited to boost crop productivity in terms of genomic adaptation with a view towards understanding the basic building blocks of crop engineering. We present the mitogenome of Blasia pusilla (an early embryophyte), assembled using PACBIO SMRT and Illumina sequencing and highlights its role from the phylogenetic perspective.Peer reviewe

Living plant collections policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History

The collections policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus is hierarchically structured. The general collections policy defines the overall principles and guidelines. The sub-collections policies, such as the Living collections policy, comply with and apply the general collections policy and specify its guidelines and instructions, taking the special nature of the sub-collections into account. The living plant collections policy guides the care of the collections in the botanic gardens and the seed bank, excluding DNA and tissue samples which are covered by a separate genomic resources policy. The purpose of the collections policy is to help guide the care of the garden collections and the processing of information relating to the collections, thereby providing the basis for developing the botanic gardens.Non peer reviewe