Work

Living collections: Biodiversity cultivated at public gardens has the power to connect ecological questions and evolutionary context

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Combining ecological questions with evolutionary context generates novel insight into both ecology and evolution. However, our ability to draw broad inferences can be limited by the taxonomic diversity present within and across species at a site. Public gardens (including botanical gardens and arboreta) may focus solely on aesthetics in developing their gardens, but some public gardens include scientific inquiry and conservation at the core of their missions (Hohn, 2022). These scientifically oriented public gardens follow community standards of excellence (Hohn, 2022) to provide unique access to curated plant collections specifically designed to gather high levels of biodiversity, both among and within species, at a single geographic location. These research-grade collections include long-lived species cared for over many decades. Such public gardens have long histories of conducting and supporting research harnessing the power inherent in these diverse collections, including explorations of systematics, ecophysiology, and ecology. By bringing together species, as well as individuals within species, from across broad spatial ranges into a single site, these collections offer living repositories of diversity ripe for scientific exploration as de facto common gardens (Dosmann, 2006; Dosmann and Groover, 2012; Primack et al., 2021).

Source: American Journal of Botany

DOI: 10.1002/ajb2.16394

Authors: Jean H. Burns, Katharine L. Stuble, Juliana S. Medeiros

Institution: Case Western Reserve University

Language: English

Topic: Botany and Plant Ecology Studies

Subfield: Plant Science

Field: Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Domain: Life Sciences

SDG: Life on land

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,215