Integrating diverse data sources from herbaria records, population genetic patterns, long-term population trends, and landscape monitoring to inform management decisions

With limited resources available to conserve over 100 species of rare plants across Colorado that are threatened by climate change and land use, Denver Botanic Gardens integrates expertise in floristics, natural history collections, demographic monitoring, genetics, and modeling to tackle conservation problems. We use ex-situ seed conservation to maintain genetic diversity by integrating population genetic patterns and demographic trends. Our in-situ conservation is driven by our contributions to a global database of herbaria records and our local plant community expertise which allows us to model and interpret the temporal and spatial response of threatened plant communities to climate change.