National Botanic Garden of Belgium (NBGB)
Dave Aplin, Responsible for Science and Horticulture
[Glasshouse Collections] david.aplin@br.fgov.be
Evaluating the living wealth of
botanic gardens:
a necessity for maintaining our own ideals
Evaluating the living wealth of botanic gardens:
a necessity for maintaining our own ideals
Plant collections in botanic gardens are extremely varied.
Decades of plant acquisitions reflect research and personal interests, of which
many may be redundant.
Regular, critical evaluation of living collections should be an increasingly
important activity, to meet the current demands of our gardens etc.
Ignoring this procedure will weaken of the word ‘Botanic’ in our institutes’
names and reduce our effectiveness.
This is especially true in space-limited areas.
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
Case studies
Conclusions
Conclusions
Maintaining our own ideals:
the art of practising what we preach
Botanic gardens increasingly required to justify their existence to fund-raising
bodies, trustees and the public.
The NBGB is not unlike other gardens of similar age. Areas are reaching
capacity while increasing costs impinge on collection management.
Plant collections at the NBGB began over a century ago. Currently, 17,000 taxa
are curated with the indoor collection alone boasting c.10,000 taxa.
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Conclusions
Living Collection statistics:
an overview of the collections at Meise
number of:
indoors
outdoors
plants
accessions
28,280
13,643
-----11,467
-----25,051
taxa
species
9,862
7,787
7,533
4,923
17,216
12,710
genera
families
2,120
277
1,367
232
3,170
338
cites taxa accessions
cultivar accessions
3,037
1,374
44
2,467
3,081(12%)
3,841(15%)
percentage (accessions): verified & id:
from wild:
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
total
37%
22%
Case studies
Conclusions
Living Collection statistics:
Meise’s ‘big five’
largest families
taxa
Cactaceae
1642
2430
19%
11%
Orchidaceae
1057
1885
48%
31%
Liliaceae
716
1146
29%
16%
Crassulaceae
700
912
35%
12%
Asteraceae
529
663
39%
27%
Rubiaceae (11th)
294
461
24%
63%
Introduction
Collections at Meise
accessions
Evaluation
Case studies
% v. & id.
Conclusions
% wild
Evaluating a Living Collection:
some preconditions to consider
A thorough evaluation will take an enormous amount of time and effort involving
a range of stakeholders. Its benefits, however, should be clear.
Pre-requisites to evaluation:
The institute should have a Collection Policy.
Collection data is stored in a database.
Confidence in that data.
Data can be extracted to provide a range of
holdings statistics.
Quantitative statistics are the quickest and easiest way to obtain an insight into
a collection. However, it must be followed by qualitative analysis.
Few collection statistics have been published. General guidelines for targets
are difficult to determine. The RBG Edinburgh [Sibbaldia, 1, 2, 3] offers a notable
exception.
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
Case studies
Conclusions
Evaluating a Living Collection:
supporting targets and legislation
The main purposes of an evaluation process is to increase the botanical
value of our holdings and to aid ex situ conservation.
An increase in botanical wealth will enable an increase in ‘botanical performance’
And thus contributing to:
CBD
GSPC
European Community Biodiversity Strategy
The European Plant Conservation Strategy
The Biodiversity Strategy of the European Union
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Conclusions
Evaluation at differing scales:
an insight into the collections
Evaluating a collection is a huge task. There are countless institute-specific
ways this may be done.
‘most’ and ‘least’ important plants
overview of all plant families
a specific family
a genus
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Conclusions
Evaluation - case study one:
our ‘most’ and ‘least’ important plants
Criteria:
Number:
% of collection
IUCN 1997 (taxa)
641
3.7%
IUCN 2001 (taxa)
656
3.8%
CITES 1 (taxa)
199
<1%
CITES 2 (taxa)
2,884
12%
recalcitrant taxa
?,???
??%
Cultivars (accessions)
3,841
15%
Cultivars (plants [indoors])
3,323
12%
Ornamental plants made way for research specimens in the glasshouses
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Conclusions
Evaluation - case study two:
identifying our most vulnerable families
70
62
number of familes
60
50
48
46
39
40
35
39
33
28
30
20
10
4
2
0
0
0
00
00
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
Case studies
Conclusions
1
-3
-5
-1
-2
0
-1
-5
-5
9
00
00
Introduction
2
4
9
19
49
99
49
10
0
>1
number of taxa
Evaluation - case study two:
identifying our most vulnerable taxa
70
number of families
62
60
50
43
40
36
30
20
10
0
single taxa
families
Introduction
Collections at Meise
single taxa
accession
families
Evaluation
Case studies
monophyletic
families
Conclusions
Evaluation - case study two:
identifying our most vulnerable taxa
20
18
number of families
18
16
15
8%
14
12
11
10
10
8
6
4
3
2
2
2
1
0
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
number of plants per family
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Conclusions
9
>10
Evaluation - case study three:
a prickly dilemma
genera
Cactaceae
200
taxa
accessions
1642
2430
% v. & id.
% wild
19%
11%
 c. 800 accessions require taxonomic updates and c. 2,000 plants
need new labelling.
 Taxonomic updates are normally done on the basis of correct
identification. But only 1 in every 5 has been examined.
 Currently, the Cactaceae take up 4 collection glasshouses and a large
public display house. No recent research conducted.
 Yet, the majority of the plants reside in CITES 1 & 2, but only 11%
are wild collected.
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Conclusions
Evaluation - case study four:
in need of a Gasteria guru
representation on the benches
Gasteria
species
accessions
plants
% v. & id.
% wild
56
115
246
0.6% = 1
16.7%
 According to Van Jaarsveld (1994), only 16 species of Gasteria exist,
these comprised of many synonyms.
 Only 1 accession is verified. So updating taxonomic updates also
involves a verification process which is difficult for a genus that exhibits
great morphological plasticity.
 We seriously have to consider the ‘value’ and purposes of this
‘collection’ to our institute before taking any action.
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Conclusions
Ex-situ conservation:
potentially, our most valuable contribution...
Ex situ conservation
The fact these two words are married is fundemental to:
Target 8: GSPC
Article 9: CBD
Introduction 1
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Ex-situ cons.
Conclusions
acknowledgments
Ex-situ conservation:
potentially, our most valuable contribution...
Evaluation process will free-up room and labour that could be used for
ex situ conservation.
Although seed banks are extremely useful, they do not represent the
solution to ex situ conservation in isolation.
Not all seeds can be stored.
Difficulties may arise that hamper the successful cultivation of germinated
plants.
The botanical community therefore needs to enter dialogue with all
relevant stakeholders and consider potential protocols for best practice
techniques.
Initially concentrate on our own, threatened, European flora.
Introduction 1
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
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Ex-situ cons.
Conclusions
acknowledgments
Ex-situ conservation:
getting Europe’s house in order...
2 – 3,000 species are threatened on our continent.
800 facing global extinction.
Need for a quantitative as well as a qualitative gap analysis of the
each threatened species status in botanic gardens.
Implementation of IPEN will significantly aid the traceability of specific
accessions and enable us to see more clearly duplications in genetic
material between gardens.
Introduction 1
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
Case Studies
Ex-situ cons.
Conclusions
acknowledgments
Evaluating the living wealth of botanic gardens:
a necessity for maintaining our own ideals
Concluding remarks
We believe that evaluation is an important part of curation management.
The result of such an undertaking will strengthen the word ‘BOTANIC’ in our
institutes’ names.
Failure to do so will result in a large percentage of holdings having no more
botanical value than plants from a local garden centre - “Stamp collections”.
As we look towards 2010 and beyond, it is vital that each and every garden
represented here today practices what we preach.
Time has come for an International Coordinated Action, to place living collections
at the heart of legitimate ex situ conservation.
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
Case studies
Conclusions
acknowledgments
Dave Aplin, Responsible for Science and Horticulture
[Glasshouse Collections] david.aplin@br.fgov.be
Evaluating the living wealth of botanic gardens:
a necessity for maintaining our own ideals
Acknowledgments
Thierry Vanderborght – for complex data retrieval from in-house database LIVCOL
Viviane Leyman, Gert Ausloos, Jan Rammeloo and
Delegates of Eurogard, 2006 – for informative discussions
Visit us at: www.botanicgarden.be
Introduction
Collections at Meise
Evaluation
Case studies
Conclusions
Acknowledgments