Explore the vast range of titles available.

We reviewed the status of orthodox seed collections of globally threatened plants conserved in − 20 °C long-term storage at the Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK in terms of their geographic and bioclimatic representativeness, taxonomic and genetic diversity, quality and physiological status. The comprehensive dataset used spans over 45 years of worldwide conservation effort across various organisations. The data provides evidence-based results and future directions for the represented globally threatened flora that are of relevance to all plant conservation and seed banking organisations across the globe. The reviewed sample includes 523 collections and represents a wide geographic range, originating from 67 countries, from all nine bio-geographic continents. The majority of collections originated from temperate climates and from habitats with no dry seasons but experiencing warm summer periods. The taxonomic composition of the collections highlighted a substantial diversity, with 303 taxa (four extinct in the wild; 56 critically endangered; 105 endangered; and 138 vulnerable) represented by 297 species, 199 genera and 74 families. Almost four fifths of the collections were harvested from wild habitats. Whilst wild-origin collections can harbour useful genes not available in the cultivated gene pool, for threatened plants both collections and taxa are likely to suffer from low genetic diversity as a low number of individual plants, populations and/or potentially viable or usable seeds were sampled at the original harvest. Large numbers of empty and infested seeds in the original harvest have significantly affected the quality of collections in terms of availability of potentially viable or usable seeds in collections. As a result, just over one third of taxa and one fifth of collections consisted of ≥ 5000 potentially viable or usable seeds. Viable seeds exhibited a sound physiological status in terms of germinability and viability at the initial round of germination tests after storage, but on average, relative germination and viability achieved were below 85%. A decline in germinability during their variable time of storage was evident for 16% of the 78 collections analysed for longevity. According to a set of criteria, suitable germination protocols for propagation of plants from seeds were identified for 165 taxa. Given the apparent differences between wild species, especially those that are rare and threatened, and domesticated crops, the quality and physiological status of reviewed collections are reasonably sound. The characteristics we observed for collections, the challenges we identified for conserving them and the germination protocols we suggested for propagation of plants from seeds have the scope to be noted, integrated and used globally across various conservation activities and policies.

This study addresses global conservation challenges for endemic vascular plants by exploring large‐scale distribution patterns and functional traits influencing their resilience, survival, and regeneration under changing environments. We compiled data for 23,981 endemic vascular plant taxa across 173 ISO countries using publicly available resources. The dataset includes conservation assessments, “Native” occurrences, and key functional traits relevant to ex situ conservation (plant life forms, seed dormancy and seed storage behavior). We analyzed climate‐driven distribution patterns, trait representation, and their relationships with Red List conservation categories. Alarmingly, 58% of endemic vascular plant taxa are designated as extinct or threatened, three times the rate observed in non‐endemics, highlighting a severe conservation crisis. This disproportionate threat reflects their heightened sensitivity to habitat loss, environmental changes, and climate fluctuations. Results indicate that climate‐driven distribution patterns and distinctive plant and seed traits contribute to this trend. Notably, 34% of endemic taxa are “climate specialists”, with 71% already threatened. Extinction risk spans 11 life forms, with over 50% of taxa within these groups currently threatened. Additionally, 91% of endemic taxa exhibit seed dormancy, requiring dormancy‐breaking mechanisms for ex situ conservation. While 82% produce orthodox seeds, suitable for seed banking, this is 10% below the global average. A greater proportion of endemic taxa produce recalcitrant seeds, which cannot be conserved in conventional seed banks and require alternative approaches, such as cryopreservation. Conservation strategies must consider the climate relationships and functional traits that influence plants' resilience. Priority should be given to “climate specialists”, taxa with narrow climate ranges, and those representing susceptible life forms or producing recalcitrant or dormant seeds, which complicate ex situ conservation. Enhancing seed banking strategies to accommodate seed trait variations is essential for long‐term conservation success. Continued research into the storage and propagation of recalcitrant and/or dormant seeds is vital to future reintroduction and recovery efforts. The study examines conservation challenges for endemic vascular plants globally by analyzing their distribution patterns and traits that influence resilience, survival, and regeneration under changing environmental conditions. Alarmingly, 58% of endemic vascular plant taxa with conservation assessments are designated as extinct or threatened, three times the rate of non‐endemics, highlighting a severe conservation crisis. Our findings indicate that climate‐driven distribution patterns, and unique plant and seed traits contribute to this trend, highlighting conservation strategies must consider the climate relationships and traits that influence plants' resilience and survival in a changing environment.

Biodiversity is essential to food security and nutrition locally and globally. By reviewing the global state of edible plants and highlighting key neglected and underutilized species, we attempt to unlock plant food resources and explore the role of fungi, which along with the wealth of traditional knowledge about their uses and practices, could help support sustainable agriculture while ensuring better protection of the environment and the continued delivery of its ecosystem services. This work will inform a wide range of user communities, including scientists, conservation and development organizations, policymakers, and the public of the importance of biodiversity beyond mainstream crops. Societal Impact Statement Biodiversity is essential to food security and nutrition locally and globally. By reviewing the global state of edible plants and highlighting key neglected and underutilized species (NUS), we attempt to unlock plant food resources and explore the role of fungi, which along with the wealth of traditional knowledge about their uses and practices, could help support sustainable agriculture while ensuring better protection of the environment and the continued delivery of its ecosystem services. This work will inform a wide range of user communities, including scientists, conservation and development organizations, policymakers, and the public of the importance of biodiversity beyond mainstream crops. Summary As the world's population is increasing, humanity is facing both shortages (hunger) and excesses (obesity) of calorie and nutrient intakes. Biodiversity is fundamental to addressing this double challenge, which involves a far better understanding of the global state of food resources. Current estimates suggest that there are at least 7,039 edible plant species, in a broad taxonomic sense, which includes 7,014 vascular plants. This is in striking contrast to the small handful of food crops that provide the majority of humanity's calorie and nutrient intake. Most of these 7,039 edible species have additional uses, the most common being medicines (70%), materials (59%), and environmental uses (40%). Species of major food crops display centers of diversity, as previously proposed, while the rest of edible plants follow latitudinal distribution patterns similarly to the total plant diversity, with higher species richness at lower latitudes. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List includes global conservation assessments for at least 30% of edible plants, with ca. 86% of them conserved ex situ. However, at least 11% of those species recorded are threatened. We highlight multipurpose NUS of plants from different regions of the world, which could be key for a more resilient, sustainable, biodiverse, and community participation‐driven new “green revolution.” Furthermore, we explore how fungi could diversify and increase the nutritional value of our diets. NUS, along with the wealth of traditional knowledge about their uses and practices, offer a largely untapped resource to support food security and sustainable agriculture. However, for these natural resources to be unlocked, enhanced collaboration among stakeholders is vital.

Plant and fungal specimens provide the auditable evidence that a particular organism occurred at a particular place, and at a particular point in time, verifying past occurrence and distribution. They also document the aspects of human exploration and culture. Collectively specimens form a global asset with significant potential for new uses to help address societal and environmental challenges. Collections also serve as a platform to engage and educate a broad range of stakeholders from the academic to the public, strengthening engagement and understanding of plant and fungal diversity—the basis of life on Earth. Societal Impact Statement Plant and fungal specimens provide the auditable evidence that a particular organism occurred at a particular place, and at a particular point in time, verifying past occurrence and distribution. They also document the aspects of human exploration and culture. Collectively specimens form a global asset with significant potential for new uses to help address societal and environmental challenges. Collections also serve as a platform to engage and educate a broad range of stakeholders from the academic to the public, strengthening engagement and understanding of plant and fungal diversity—the basis of life on Earth. Summary We provide a global review of the current state of plant and fungal collections including herbaria and fungaria, botanic gardens, fungal culture collections, and biobanks. The review focuses on the numbers of collections, major taxonomic group and species level coverage, geographical representation and the extent to which the data from collections are digitally accessible. We identify the major gaps in these collections and in digital data. We also consider what collection types need to be further developed to support research, such as environmental DNA and cryopreservation of desiccation‐sensitive seeds. Around 31% of vascular plant species are represented in botanic gardens, and 17% of known fungal species are held in culture collections, both these living collections showing a bias toward northern temperate taxa. Only 21% of preserved collections are available via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) with Asia, central and north Africa and Amazonia being relatively under‐represented. Supporting long‐term collection facilities in biodiverse areas should be considered by governmental and international aid agencies, in addition to short‐term project funding. Institutions should consider how best to speed up digitization of collections and to disseminate all data via aggregators such as GBIF, which will greatly facilitate use, research, and community curation to improve quality. There needs to be greater alignment between biodiversity informatics initiatives and standards to allow more comprehensive analysis of collections data and to facilitate linkage of extended information, facilitating broader use. Much can be achieved with greater coordination through existing initiatives and strengthening relationships with users.

We introduce the database of European vascular plant red lists, a compilation of red list categories designated to taxa during in-country conservation assessments. Version 1.0 of the database is a standalone static dataset with open access in an end-user friendly format. Its aim is to fulfil the objectives of European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action 18201, ConservePlants. The database synthesizes data across 42 red lists from 41 countries, with participation of 39 out of a total of 44 European countries and two additional Mediterranean countries. The database contains 51,109 records representing 21,481 original taxonomic names with 37 different red list categories. During data harmonisation, 20,312 of the original taxonomic names were assigned to 17,873 unique accepted taxonomic names with scientific authorships across 184 families, 1650 genera and 15,593 species; and red list categories were standardised to 13 unique categories. We see this database as a source of information in diverse plant conservation activities and suitable for various stakeholders.

Thermal fingerprints for seeds of 20 crop wild relatives of Brassicaceae stored for 8 to 44 years at the Plant Germplasm Bank—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank—were generated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and analyzed in relation to storage stability. Relatively poor storing oily seeds at −20 °C tended to have lipids with crystallization and melting transitions spread over a wide temperature range (c. 40 °C) that spanned the storage temperature, plus a melting end temperature of around 15 °C. We postulated that in dry storage, the variable longevity in Brassicaceae seeds could be associated with the presence of a metastable lipid phase at the temperature at which they are being stored. Consistent with that, when high-quality seed samples of various species were assessed after banking at −5 to −10 °C for c. 40 years, melting end temperatures were observed to be much lower (c. 0 to −30 °C) and multiple lipid phases did not occur at the storage temperature. We conclude that multiple features of the seed lipid thermal fingerprint could be used as biophysical markers to predict potential poor performance of oily seeds during long-term, decadal storage.

The Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) Partnership, developed and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), conserves propagules primarily from orthodox seed-bearing wild vascular plants. It is the largest ex situ conservation programme in the world, currently involving 96 countries and territories. Where possible, seeds are collected and conserved in the country of origin with duplicates being sent to RBG Kew’s MSB for storage. In this paper we assess the conservation value of the germplasm stored at the MSB using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The MSB holdings represent a high quality, rich biological resource. Substantial and unique taxonomic diversity exists amongst the collections, representing 365 families, 5813 genera, 36,975 species and 39,669 taxa conserved. The collections cover a wide geographic range, originating from 189 countries and territories, representing all nine bio-geographic regions and all 35 biodiversity hotspots. The collections possess significant natural capital and population value: 32% of taxa, representing 49% of collections, have at least one identified use to humans; and 74% of taxa, representing 78% of collections, are either endemic, endangered (nationally or globally) and/or have an economic, ecological, social, cultural or scientific value. While 10% of taxa, representing > 8% of collections, are either extinct, rare or vulnerable to extinction at the global and/or national level, 20% of taxa, representing 13% collections, are endemic at the country or territory scale. Over the 17-year period since 2000 at least 11,182 seed samples, representing 12% of taxa and 8% of collections, have been distributed globally for conservation, research, education and display. This analysis highlighted collection gaps in MSB holdings in relation to their geographic representativeness, the taxonomic diversity of large families and genera of angiosperms, and coverage of threatened taxa. Further analysis across the entire MSB Partnership is required to underpin future collection activities and maximize the usefulness of collections.

We introduce the AusTraits database - a compilation of values of plant traits for taxa in the Australian flora (hereafter AusTraits). AusTraits synthesises data on 448 traits across 28,640 taxa from field campaigns, published literature, taxonomic monographs, and individual taxon descriptions. Traits vary in scope from physiological measures of performance (e.g. photosynthetic gas exchange, water-use efficiency) to morphological attributes (e.g. leaf area, seed mass, plant height) which link to aspects of ecological variation. AusTraits contains curated and harmonised individual- and species-level measurements coupled to, where available, contextual information on site properties and experimental conditions. This article provides information on version 3.0.2 of AusTraits which contains data for 997,808 trait-by-taxon combinations. We envision AusTraits as an ongoing collaborative initiative for easily archiving and sharing trait data, which also provides a template for other national or regional initiatives globally to fill persistent gaps in trait knowledge. Measurement(s) plant trait Technology Type(s) digital curation Sample Characteristic - Organism Viridiplantae Sample Characteristic - Location Australia Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14545755

The Integrated Collection Management System (ICMS), built in collaboration with EarthCape Oy, provides a modern, secure, and compliant system to manage and disseminate Kew’s data, locally and globally. Benefits of the ICMS Accessible data in one system to support business requirements, providing efficient management of information to support all curational and research activities. Auditing and updating collections, ensuring compliance with relevant laws on access to genetic resources, benefit sharing, institutional agreements on the transfer of material and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species compliance. Elimination of risk: maintenance of previous legacy systems involves a high likelihood of failure. Development Team: maintaining the new system requires fewer resources. Accessible data in one system to support business requirements, providing efficient management of information to support all curational and research activities. Auditing and updating collections, ensuring compliance with relevant laws on access to genetic resources, benefit sharing, institutional agreements on the transfer of material and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species compliance. Elimination of risk: maintenance of previous legacy systems involves a high likelihood of failure. Development Team: maintaining the new system requires fewer resources. This presentation will focus on the planning, choosing, and implementation of our new ICMS. The ICMS project is time critical due to the need to replace the historic collection management systems that had become outdated and non-compliant with relevant legislation. This carried an unacceptable risk of data loss and limited accessibility for science and research. We will cover understanding and collating the business requirements for each collection and procuring a supplier who could collaborate with Kew by providing a system that could be developed to support collection data requirements across all collections. We will provide insights into end users’ and development team’s experiences with the implementation work of moving collection data from existing well known internal systems to a modern integrated system. Although positive, there are number of areas where end users and the development team found the experience sometimes frustrating and challenging, while at the same time working and managing their daily activities. The presentation will cover the lessons learnt through the implementation process of developing and testing the system for each collection. Major Lessons Learnt through the Implementation Phase Management Support and Stakeholder Engagement : It was essential that the project had full management support and engagement from the onset of the project planning phase. This support was critical in all communications and planning allowing collection managers to understand the strategic importance and need to align staff and their time to support the implementation of their collections. Key staff from each collection played a significant role in supporting the collation of business requirements, being part of the tender process, supporting the identification of the successful supplier, and being part of the testing cycles. Planning: To ensure robust business planning and effective implementation of the system it is critical that time is scheduled within the relevant delivery departments and key staff are appointed in the early stages to provide robust and accurate information to support the development and to approve the business plan. Investment was made in appointing a business analyst to capture all the ‘As Is’ and ‘To Be’ business requirements and agreeing and documenting clearly what was not in scope with stakeholders. A programme manager was appointed to support the production of the business case together with supporting the engagement with key stakeholders and maintaining all the communications to support the programme. Once the business case was approved, these roles played a key part in the delivery of the implementation plan and recruiting additional staff to support the rollout of the programme. Investment was made in appointing a business analyst to capture all the ‘As Is’ and ‘To Be’ business requirements and agreeing and documenting clearly what was not in scope with stakeholders. A programme manager was appointed to support the production of the business case together with supporting the engagement with key stakeholders and maintaining all the communications to support the programme. Once the business case was approved, these roles played a key part in the delivery of the implementation plan and recruiting additional staff to support the rollout of the programme. Use of the Spectrum Standard : This standard provided a clear framework to use when developing the requirements and approach for the new ICMS, allowing the Team to define what the system must be able to do. (Spectrum Collections Trust) Tender Process and Relationship with Supplier: The business requirements supported the production of the tender specification allowing prospective suppliers to align their responses to Kew’s specific needs. A key requirement from suppliers was to highlight how they would work collaboratively with Kew throughout the implementation process to ensure that the bespoke needs of each collection were met. Development and Deployment : As the project progressed with more collections being added to the system, it became apparent that more staff were required to support data cleaning, testing and training, in addition to utilising collection staff to deliver testing cycles. Scope was minimised by having a clear business case outlining both what was in scope and out of scope for the project. Constant communication and pre-implementation phase engagement was carried out to allow staff to plan and mitigate changes to their usual operations, minimising disruption to day-to-day business There were time challenges for smaller collections with few staff and more time needed to be given to allow staff feedback and engagement. Scope was minimised by having a clear business case outlining both what was in scope and out of scope for the project. Constant communication and pre-implementation phase engagement was carried out to allow staff to plan and mitigate changes to their usual operations, minimising disruption to day-to-day business There were time challenges for smaller collections with few staff and more time needed to be given to allow staff feedback and engagement. Post Project Costs: Ongoing staff and system licence costs need to be communicated clearly within the business case to ensure these costs are factored into the institution's core budget as the system becomes 'Business as usual.’

A substantially rich diversity of the world’s recorded useful plants (UPs) is captured within the Millennium Seed Bank collection hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, at Wakehurst, UK with 13,598 species (34%) belonging to 3696 genera and 325 families. This constitutes just over half of the total accessions and one third of the species and covers all 9 continents, 8 realms, 14 biomes, 34 biodiversity hotspots and 175 countries. The most common beneficial use category within the captured diversity is medicinal, then species with environmental, material, and human food value. About 86% of conserved UP species have a ‘Least Concern’ conservation status but 8% are identified as globally threatened. The advantages of mutual, continued, and long-term partnership (e.g., Mexico) are showcased when conserving plants important for local communities and addressing conservation challenges beyond seed banking. However, the geographic coverage suffers from a lack of partnerships with some parts of the world. Also, a low number of accessions contributed from many countries means that insufficient native range is yet to be captured for many species. This is particularly the case for restricted or narrow distribution species from families or genera with a high incidence of recalcitrant or short-lived seeds. Future planning must tailor better to cover the spatial distribution patterns for individual species, thereby improving the number of accessions and geographical coverage for those captured. Moreover, seed biology research should characterise desiccation tolerance and develop complementary, novel conservation methods, such as cryopreservation, to strengthen conservation options for UP species.