Consortia Metacollections: new approaches for coordinating living conservation collections

The Global Conservation Consortia (GCC) are a worldwide initiative spearheaded by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) with the aim to mobilize coordinated networks of institutions and experts to collaboratively develop and implement comprehensive conservation strategies for priority threatened plant groups including Magnolias, Oaks and Cycads. Amongst other activities, the strategies for these groups may include the development and management of ex situ metacollections—networks of coordinated living collections at multiple sites managed as a single population—of the most threatened species. Gap analysis methodologies have been developed to assess existing ex situ collections and provide guidance for their expansion and management with the goal of maintaining metacollections of high conservation value. The maintenance of metacollections by multiple institutions requires a framework for formatting, sharing and collaboratively tracking data and the software to help make informed management decisions. The forthcoming Pedigree module in BGCI’s PlantSearch database is a valuable tool for sharing standardized data among GCCs and the implementation of these comprehensive conservation strategies. Using Magnolia as a case study, this talk will cover a brief introduction to these valuable tools, Conservation Gap Analysis methodologies and extend an invitation for further discussion during a breakout group.