e360 digest

16 Oct 2009: Kew Gardens Seed Bank
Has Collected 10 Percent of Plant Species

A repository created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has collected nearly 10 percent of the seeds from the world’s estimated 300,000 seed-bearing plants, completing the first phase of an ambitious plan to preserve the seeds of all the species threatened by human development and climate change. The final seeds added in the project’s opening phase came from an endangered pink banana — Musa itinerans — favored by Asian elephants. To date, the Kew seed bank has collected 1.6 billion seeds from a total of 24,200 plant species. The next phase of the project aims to preserve seeds from 75,000 species by 2020. The seed bank has already been used to revive threatened species, including replanting a shrub, the shiny nematolepis, whose only known remaining plants were destroyed in massive Australian wildfires earlier this year. Scientists estimate that as many as 200,000 of the world’s seed-bearing species could eventually be at risk from rising temperatures and human encroachment on the natural world. The seed bank, which opened in 2000, stores the seeds in super-cooled, underground vaults in Sussex.

Yale Environment 360 is
a publication of the
Yale School of Forestry
& Environmental Studies.

SEARCH e360

CONNECT

Twitter: YaleE360
e360 on Facebook
Donate to e360
View mobile site
Bookmark
Share e360
Email newsletter
Subscribe to our feed:

ABOUT

About e360
Contact
Submission Guidelines
Reprints

e360 PHOTO GALLERY

South African photojournalist Adam Welz documents the harrowing relocation of six white rhinos to a region that has lost all its rhinos to poaching. View the gallery.

DEPARTMENTS

Opinion
Reports
Analysis
Interviews
e360 Digest
Podcasts
Video Reports

TOPICS

Biodiversity
Business & Innovation
Climate
Energy
Forests
Oceans
Policy & Politics
Pollution & Health
Science & Technology
Sustainability
Urbanization
Water

REGIONS

Antarctica and the Arctic
Africa
Asia
Australia
Central & South America
Europe
Middle East
North America

e360 VIDEO

A Yale Environment 360 video explores Ecuador’s threatened Yasuni Biosphere Reserve with scientists inventorying its stunning forests and wildlife. Watch the video.

e360 MOBILE

The latest
from Yale
Environment 360 is now available for mobile devices at e360.yale.edu/mobile.

e360 VIDEO

In a Yale Environment 360 video, photographer Pete McBride documents how increasing water demands have transformed the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the arid Southwest. Watch the video.




Top Image: aerial view of Iceland. © Google & TerraMetrics.

e360 VIDEO

The Warriors of Qiugang, a Yale Environment 360 video that chronicles the story of a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant, was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Watch the video.

OF INTEREST