Streamlining Protocol Development for Exceptional Plant Conservation

The need for simple, efficient, and streamlined exceptional plant conservation methods is great, with an estimated 50% of plant species projected to require cryopreservation for long-term banking. But techniques remain species-specific and require specialized skills for development, preventing their widespread use among gardens for long-term conservation. In order to truly grow capacity in exceptional plant conservation, we need to be able to generalize techniques across species, or at least be able to draw insights from other species as a starting point for protocol development. By tapping our partners in the Global Conservation Consortium for Oaks, we have been able to collect shoots from the same oak trees of eight focal species across the country three years in a row, allowing us to better understand how uncontrollable factors like genotype, weather, or location may affect the success of initiation into tissue culture. Insight into these factors can help us to develop more effective protocols for cross-species success in tissue culture initiation, a critical first step in the cryopreservation of many exceptional species. In addition, we’re developing the Comparative In Vitro Database, a free online tool that allows users to compare published tissue culture protocols across species, so researchers can develop protocols more easily by building off the literature instead of starting from scratch. Analysis of this database may also reveal trends in tissue culture success within species or groups of species, which can be used to shorten the protocol development process. With the time we have left to save plant species growing short, the need to build capacity and simplify protocol development as much as possible is imperative to giving exceptional species a fighting chance at survival.