Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Benefits and challenges for gene conservation: a view from the UK national tree seed project

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Trees and woodlands in the United Kingdom are currently subject to a range of threats including loss and fragmentation of native woodland and escalating pest and disease outbreaks. The largely unknown impacts of climate change pose a number of questions when considering afforestation and reforestation. There are frequent calls to develop resilient woodlands, robust enough to deal with these challenges but there is uncertainty over what this means in terms of species mixes and use of local provenance versus non-local planting material. Conserving and making appropriate use of the current genetic diversity of native trees and shrubs should be an important element for meeting these challenges. For this reason, the United Kingdom National Tree Seed Project was launched by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2013. Multi-provenance seed collections are being made, and conserved in Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. These genetic resources will be made available for research and conservation activities, ultimately facilitating access to appropriate planting materials for afforestation and reforestation.

Parent Publication

Citation

Trivedi, Clare; Kallow, Simon. 2017. Benefits and challenges for gene conservation: a view from the UK national tree seed project. In: Sniezko, Richard A.; Man, Gary; Hipkins, Valerie; Woeste, Keith; Gwaze, David; Kliejunas, John T.; McTeague, Brianna A., tech. cords. 2017. Gene conservation of tree species—banking on the future. Proceedings of a workshop. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-963. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station: 44-47.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/55161