Native Seed Supply and the Restoration Species Pool.

Emma Ladouceur,Costantino Bonomi,Hugh W Pritchard,Borja Jiménez‐Alfaro,Pietro P.M Iannetta,Marcello De Vitis,Maria Marin,Holly Abbandonato

doi:10.1111/conl.12381

Abstract

Globally, annual expenditure on ecological restoration of degraded areas for habitat improvement and biodiversity conservation is approximately $18bn. Seed farming of native plant species is crucial to meet restoration goals, but may be stymied by the disconnection of academic research in seed science and the lack of effective policies that regulate native seed production/supply. To illustrate this problem, we identified 1,122 plant species important for European grasslands of conservation concern and found that only 32% have both fundamental seed germination data available and can be purchased as seed. The “restoration species pool,” or set of species available in practice, acts as a significant biodiversity selection filter for species use in restoration projects. For improvement, we propose: (1) substantial expansion of research and development on native seed quality, viability, and production; (2) open‐source knowledge transfer between sectors; and (3) creation of supportive policy intended to stimulate demand for biodiverse seed.

Highlights

One-tenth of global wilderness has been destroyed in the last two decades (Pennisi 2016), and two-thirds of terrestrial environments are officially classed as degraded (Merritt & Dixon 2011)
The majority of taxonomic families completely lacking Germination Data Availability (GDA) are completely lacking Commercially Available (CA), the sample size is small in these cases (Figure 2, Table S5)
Species for which there is a lack of GDA are less likely to be CA and more likely to be omitted from the restoration species pool” (RSP)

Summary

Introduction

One-tenth of global wilderness has been destroyed in the last two decades (Pennisi 2016), and two-thirds of terrestrial environments are officially classed as degraded (Merritt & Dixon 2011). Ecological restoration (ER) accelerates the recovery of a degraded ecosystem with respect to health, integrity, and sustainability (SER 2004), and is recognized as a key complementary action for habitat conservation. Current global ER targets aim to restore 150 million ha or 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020 (Menz et al 2013). Critical to success is the urgent need for access to high-quality seed through the farming of native species, as part of a range of flexible strategies to improve ER (Broadhurst et al 2016). Seed-based plant conservation and use strategies (Merritt & Dixon 2011; Royal Botanic Gardens Kew 2015), seedbased research (Jimenez-Alfaro et al 2016), and seed supply all play critical roles in successful ER. Native seed sourcing, collection, production, and storage is more challenging than for agricultural species

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