27 January: Roland von Bothmer

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault – is it important for plant genetic resources? 

Roland von Bothmer

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, NordGen, Sweden

The domestication of crops some 10 000 years ago lead to a process to a considerable increase in genetic variation. The process included major genetic changes in several adaptive traits. To be transferred from a state of adaptation for competition in natural habitats to an environment dominated by human interaction meant considerable genetic shifts. The domestication influenced major genetic systems such as reproduction and dispersal mechanisms, life forms, growth habits etc. The initial phase of domestication was followed by rapid migration and adaptation to completely new areas and environments. Unconscious and conscious selection lead to the establishment of a great number of locally and regionally adapted landraces. The great diversity was a starting point for modern plant breeding in the end of the 19th century. What has happened during later decades is that the great genetic variation established over centuries and millennia has diminished, due to “genetic erosion”.

The international genebank movement started comparatively late. The great Russian pioneer N. I. Vavilov developed the basic concepts with worldwide collections and conservation of plant genetic resources (PGR). In later decades a great number of genebanks have been established. Collecting expeditions in remote areas have been carried out and the current number of genebank holdings exceeds 7 million, mainly of the world’s major crops. However, this figure includes an unknown number of duplications. Since there are a number of unforeseen, serious problems facing the genebanks today there is an increasing demand for a worldwide back up system for storing safety duplications. The Global Seed Vault at Svalbard was established four years ago with the objective to store all unique accessions of the world, which has been estimated to between 3 and 4 millions. The remote and exotic location of Svalbard at 78o N puts a particular focus on the necessity for conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources to fight the big challenges of the world: overpopulation, hunger, climate change and a sustainable long term production of food. A number of international agreements and treaties regulate the access to and utilization of PGR.

13 January: Henrik Ærenlund Pedersen

The relevancy and perspectives of scientific flora projects: two examples from the Flora of Thailand project

Henrik Ærenlund Pedersen

Associate Professor, Ph.D., Botanical Garden & Museum, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen


Is it really worthwhile revising the same flora repeatedly? A case study in Thai Orchidaceae. – In many contexts, scientific floras (dealing with one, several or all plant families on a national or regional scale) are the most intensively used surveys and identification tools for species of vascular plants. Flora of Thailand will be the first real standard flora to cover all families of flowering plants in Thailand. Nevertheless, the Thai representatives of a number of plant groups have undergone one or more revisions previously. Is it worthwhile revising such groups again for Flora of Thailand – and would it even make sense to start thinking of a second edition of the flora? To throw some light on this, I compared three successive revisions of the orchid subfamily Orchidoideae in Thailand (published in 1958–1964, 1977–1978 and 2011, respectively). Together, the three revisions exhibited a progressive increase in the net number of accepted taxa. The relative increase was highest from the first to the second revision, but still substantial from the second to the third. The net results covered an even higher number of changes (additions end exclusions of taxa) that partly neutralized each other – and other changes were in themselves neutral in relation to the net number of taxa accepted. Classification at species level, but not at genus level, tended to stabilize over time. Altogether, the results demonstrate that both the second and the third revision were worthwhile indeed, as each of them provided comprehensive changes (arguably improvements) compared to the latest previous revision.

Flora projects as drivers of biodiversity research, exemplified by the treatment of the Orchidaceae for Flora of Thailand. – Any scientific flora project relies primarily on a taxonomic revision of the flora accommodated in the region covered by that project. Furthermore, it is commonly recognized that once the flora handbook has been published, it represents a major source of knowledge and data that can be utilized in other research fields such as biogeography, vegetation ecology and macro-ecology. On the other hand, surprisingly little attention has been given to the fact that flora projects can to a wide extent initiate and facilitate complementary research activities during their own lifetime. Using the ongoing treatment of the Orchidaceae for Flora of Thailand as an example, it is demonstrated how the organization of field trips and the establishment of research groups within the framework of the flora project – together with the recurrent need for achieving taxonomic clarity beyond the borders of Thailand – have given rise to complementary research on multiple aspects of orchid-related biodiversity. Examples include: the preparation of global monographs; traditional or morphometrically based revisions of intricate species complexes throughout mainland Asia; minor biogeographic studies and autecological studies of epiphytic as well as terrestrial species. Additionally, it is demonstrated how the efforts of making existing data available for the flora project (e.g. through the Seidenfaden Database of Orchids and the Native Thai Orchid Network) may highly benefit non-floristic research as well.

6 January: Else Østergaard Andersen

Thy National Park – the first National Park in Denmark

Else Østergaard Andersen, M.Sc. & MPA, Manager, Thy National Park

Denmark inaugurated its first National Park in 2008 – 99 years after the first European National Parks were established in Sweden. Thy National Park lies in the north-westernmost part of Denmark. It is often said to be the largest – and last – wilderness in Denmark. The main habitats of the park are Atlantic dunes and dune heaths.

Thy National Park is also a landscape with a special cultural history. A natural catastrophe starting in the 15th century and lasting almost 400 years ruined arable land by sand drift. The sand drift lead farmers to move their farms further inland, or to settle by the sea and survive by fishing. During the fight against the sand, plantations have been created – with tree species from central Europe and even North America.

Officially, the Danish national parks do not correlate with the IUCN Protected Area Management Categories. However, Thy National Park contains most of the IUCN categories, ranging from strict nature reserve with no access from man (category Ia), through Wilderness Areas (Ib), National Park (II), etc., and to Protected Area with sustainable use of natural resources (VI).

The seminar will focus on the process since the 1999 OECD Environmental Performance Review, the Danish National Park Act from 2007, and till 2012, 3½ years after the inauguration of Thy National Park. What are the legal aims? How does the national park operate? What are the plans? How will nature benefit from the National Park? Can rural development go hand in hand with nature protection?