As Seen on CPC’s Rare Plant Academy: Prioritizing species, populations, and regions for ex situ collecting: Threatened native U.S. oaks as a case study

Despite being essential components of many North American ecosystems, many native oaks in the U.S. are threatened with extinction in the wild. How should these trees be prioritized in ex situ conservation efforts? In this Rare Plant Academy video, a presentation from CPC’s 2019 National Meeting, Emily Beckman of The Morton Arboretum describes a conservation gap analysis of North American native oaks conducted by researchers at The Morton Arboretum, BGCI-US, and the U.S. Forest Service. This gap analysis included a survey of global ex situ efforts, allowing researchers to estimate the genetic and ecological coverage of ex situ collections for the oaks. The results from this analysis can be applied to the prioritization of species, populations, and regions when it comes to the ex situ conservation of threatened native U.S. oaks.