2023 APGA Conference: Metacollections Management: new approaches for improving living conservation collections workshop

The Global Conservation Consortia are excited to be part of the American Public Gardens Association 2023 Annual Conference hosting a workshop,  ‘Metacollection Management: new approaches for improving living conservation collections’, on June 5th. We have provided a series of resources that support the themes and topics that will be presented on during the workshop; we encourage participants to refer to them before, during and after the workshop as needed.

Metacollections Management: new approaches for improving living conservation collections Workshop Resources

• GCC Affiliation sign-up 
• PlantSearch
• PlantShare
• GardenSearch
• Climate Assessment Tool
• Conservation Action Tracker
• BGCI guidance briefs
  • Collecting Material for Species Recovery
• Center for Plant Conservation Best Plant Conservation Practices to Support Species Survival in the Wild 
• Collecting forms and papers:
  • Field collecting form
    • Data fields we recommend collecting data on when out in the field 
  • Proportional sampling strategy often captures more genetic diversity when population sizes vary (Rosenberger et al., 2021)
• Handouts for how to obtain good tissue samples for genetic analysis
• Toward the Metacollection (Griffith et al., 2019)
• Guidelines for establishing and managing an oak metacollection site
• Attrition and the design of metacollections for ex situ plant conservation (Thomas et al., 2023)
• Links to Gap Analyses & related docs:
  • Conservation Gap Analysis of Native U.S. Oaks (Beckman et al. 2019)
  • Quantifying and Sustaining Conservation Value of Four Tree Collections (Bruns et al. 2023)
  • Integrated Collections Development (Hoban et al., 2023) 
  • Global Conservation Gap Analysis of Magnolia (Linsky et al. 2022), and Conservation Gap Analysis of Nature Magnolias of the U.S. and Canada (Linsky et al. 2022)
  • Ex situ Gap Analysis of High Priority Plant Taxa of Conservation Concern in the Southeast U.S. (Beckman Bruns et al. 2022)

 

Workshop Abstract:

The public garden community has long known that we are more impactful working together than on our own, but how does that translate to living collections? A network of coordinated living collections at multiple sites managed as a single population—​a metacollection​—is the most effective and efficient way to conserve genetic diversity of threatened exceptional plants (plants that cannot be conserved in conventional seed banks). Metacollections are living gene banks that can be used for research, education, restoration, and act as an insurance policy against extinction. Zoos have long been practicing a metacollection model for animals and developed two-pronged database and breeding software that work together to guide management of captive populations of rare, priority species. Taking after the Zoo model, “PlantSearch Pedigree and “PMxceptional,” were designed to support living collections management of exceptional plant species. These new tools will revolutionize the plant community’s ability to share and leverage collection data for managing coordinated living collections of high conservation value; they can be utilized by those who are a part of coordinated threatened plant metacollection networks which rely on sharing data across stakeholders for the effective conservation of priority, threatened species.

In this workshop, participants who are collections managers, field botanists, conservationists, curators, and similar, with existing or emerging conservation programs at their institutions, will be trained in metacollection management and the PMXceptional and PlantSearch Pedigree module tools. Presenters will explain the background and rationale for each tool, and demonstrate their features. Participants will learn how to share and access collections data via the PlantSearch Pedigree module, and how to use PMx analyses to make management decisions. In addition, other valuable tools and resources for managing metacollections of rare plant germplasm will be shared. We aim to help participants learn how to maximize the conservation value of their collections, within the context of their organization’s current capacity. Overall, participants will learn about these emerging metacollection and conservation tools, and how to apply them to meet institutional and collective conservation goals.