Regional responsibility for plant conservation: The 2010 GSPC Target 8 in Sardinia

Abstract

The collections stored at the Sardinian Germplasm Bank (BG-SAR) were analysed to verify if setting conservation priorities\ud on the exclusive endemic flora of Sardinia (Italy) would make it possible to reach the 2010 GSPC Target 8. By 2010, 39.9%\ud of the exclusive-endemics of Sardinia, 43.1% of the BGCI European threatened species and 65.0% of the taxa listed in\ud Annex II of DIR 92/43/EEC present on the island had been stored in BG-SAR. Of the stored plants, 40% of those listed in\ud the DIR 92/43/EEC, and only 25.69% of the BGCI threatened plants are represented by an adequate number of\ud populations. For a few of the stored threatened plants (ca. 36%), and for 60% of the DIR 92/43/EEC ones, at least one\ud seedlot with more than 5000 seeds is available. These data indicate that focusing on exclusive endemics gave a substantial,\ud although not decisive, contribution towards the achievement of the 2010 GSPC Target 8 in Sardinia, and that more efforts\ud are needed to guarantee the effective long-term conservation of these threatened taxa with the aim of reaching the 2020\ud GSPC target

A Common Approach to the Conservation of Threatened Island Vascular Plants: First Results in the Mediterranean Basin

“…Despite in situ conservation actions being the best option to conserve plant diversity, ex situ conservation allows a complementary method to avoid prompt extinction [9,10,26,63]. Currently, ex situ conservation focuses on seed banking, but this strategy is inappropriate for several endangered plants; new ex situ techniques that are currently available, such as cryopreservation (and in vitro methods) and collections of living specimens, should be implemented in order to limit this gap [64].…”

“…Over the last few years, great efforts have been made to preserve plant diversity in seedbanks; seed banking is largely recognized as a main ex situ conservation tool for the dependable and capable conservation of wild plant genetic resources [8]. Germplasm conservation, including seed banking, pollen/tissue storage and vegetative cloning, allows the preservation of most of the genetic material in a small space, and thus seed banks should be considered an adequate wealthy biological resource with high quality germplasm, considerable taxonomic diversity and vast geographic coverage of accessions, which represent important natural capital and population worth [9,10]. Despite several objective constraints (e.g., plants producing few viable seeds, plants circumscribed to peculiar habitats or unorthodox seeds, etc.…”

“…Despite several objective constraints (e.g., plants producing few viable seeds, plants circumscribed to peculiar habitats or unorthodox seeds, etc. ), the main purpose of these structures is to ensure any possible effort for the long-term conservation of the highest number of plant taxa [9][10][11]. Optimistically, ex situ conservation could reach significant levels in forthcoming years (at least in some territories worldwide), and with accessions representative of the natural variability.…”

The Aichi Biodiversity Target 12 at regional level: an achievable goal?

“…As a precautionary measure, more importance should be given to ex situ conservation in seed banks (Krigas, Menteli, and Vokou 2015;Mattana, Fenu, and Bacchetta 2012), which may support further interventions, such as translocations (e.g. Cogoni et al 2013;Godefroid et al 2011b).…”

“…Cogoni et al 2013;Godefroid et al 2011b). One of the most effective ways to preserve the plant diversity through ex situ conservation is the storage in seed banks, which allows conserving large amounts of genetic material in a small space and, under suitable conditions, for a long time with minimum risk of genetic damage (Godefroid et al 2011a;Krigas et al 2015;Mattana, Fenu, and Bacchetta 2012). This is reflected in the Target 8 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation for 2020 (GSPC 2008) asking for 'at least 75% of threatened plant species in ex situ collections, preferably in the country of origin, and at least 20% available for recovery and restoration programmes'.…”