Increasingly, botanic gardens and arboreta serve as effective partners for conserving species diversity and restoring natural communities at a time when the need for these activities is urgent. Their capacity for addressing pressing conservation challenges results from multifaceted approach to collections development, research, training, horticultural techniques, and land management. Global conservation frameworks for gardens support the establishment of partnership networks, public programming, and broader scientific impacts as part of strategic objectives at botanic gardens around the world. In the biodiversity hotspot of the southeastern U.S., botanical gardens are coordinating essential research and applied conservation activities that result in measurable impacts for conserving species diversity.
Results/Conclusions
Gardens are in a position to communicate information about natural history, rare species and native plant materials development to owners and managers of public and private lands, and they can be instrumental in creating networks for effective conservation action. Examples from the southeastern U.S. illustrate how this has been put into practice:1. Development of propagation protocols and research studies for native plant materials production to address ecosystem resilience, food security, and conservation of imperiled species. Through the Georgia Native Plant Initiative, propagation protocols were developed for perennial plants that provide a foundation for restoring native habitats in the Southeast – and for piedmont prairie habitats in particular. 2. As part of a study to determine reasons for rarity in endemic Southeastern plant species, we have established common garden studies to measure adaptive traits and expand comparative research into ecophysiology and genetic underpinnings for variation in common and narrow endemic congeners; Pityopsis ruthii (Ruth’s golden aster) and P. graminifolia (narrowleaf silkgrass). 3. Finally, priority setting for conserving at-risk plants species was the objective of the first Southeastern Partners in Plant Conservation meeting convened at the Atlanta Botanical Garden in 2016. More than 160 people from 24 states and territories representing, federal, state and local government agencies, botanic gardens, universities and other partners met for three days to set priorities for 279 at-risk plant taxa across eight subregions. Priority actions were identified for nine areas of conservation need including, land management, ex situ conservation, and genetic and taxonomic research. What was unexpected was the identification of taxa that did not need conservation action or regulation. Continued coordinated efforts between agencies and botanical gardens will address priority needs for plants species and prevent loss of plant biodiversity.