SEEDS OF SUCCESS:
PRESERVING AMERICA’S NATIVE PLANTS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
What is Seeds of Success?
What is the Chicago Botanic Gardens’ role?
What is a seed bank?
Why seeds?
How is seed collected?
Where do we collect?
What happens to the seeds?
How are the species determined?
Can I use seeds collected for the Millennium Seed Bank Project?
How is the Seeds of Success project funded?
What is Seeds of Success? The Seeds of Success (SOS) project is the United States’ branch of the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB), an international conservation program developed and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This ambitious global initiative aims to collect and store seed from 10% of the world’s flora by 2010 for a total of over 24,000 species from 18 different countries. The collections are kept for long-term conservation in cold-storage, but, where and when appropriate, can be used for research or restoration purposes. See the Seeds of Success website for more information on the United States’ national collecting project.
What is the Chicago Botanic Gardens’ role? Between 2003 and 2009, the Chicago Botanic Garden is committed to collecting seeds from 1,500 native species across the different Midwest ecoregions for the Millennium Seed Bank Project with an emphasis on prairie species. Due to land use changes, fragmentation, urbanization and invasive species, the tallgrass prairie has been reduced to less than 0.01% of its former range, making it one of the world’s most threatened habitats. In addition to fulfilling our agreement of seed-banking one population per target species for the SOS/MSB project, here at the Chicago Botanic Garden we are also banking additional accessions of each target species from various collecting sites and populations.
What is a seed bank? A seed bank is a repository of seeds preserved in hermetically-sealed containers at subfreezing temperatures. Seeds that can withstand storage in a seed bank must be desiccation tolerant; therefore species from habitats with seasonal droughts can often be banked while many tropical species can not. By drying and freezing seeds, their life span can be extended on the order of decades and even centuries. As a general rule of thumb, for every 1% reduction in seed moisture content and every 5°C reduction in temperature, seed life span doubles. Seed-banking is not a new idea - over a thousand such banks exist worldwide with most housing seeds of economically important crops. The MSB Project is unique because of its focus on native species and because of the scale of taxa being targeted (10% of the world’s flora). A seed bank is an example of ex-situ (off-site) conservation, where biodiversity is conserved separately from its original habitat. Both this type of ex-situ conservation, as well as preserving environments and habitats as they are in the wild, in-situ conservation, are vital to species conservation as a whole.
Why seeds? Once dried and frozen, many seeds can remain viable for more than 200 years. Because seeds take up little space and are often produced in abundance, seed banking is an efficient and cost effective way to conserve the diversity of plant species. A single seed has the potential to become a fully-functioning adult plant – a vital component of natural habitats. Seeds can be germinated, allowing for further study and then transplantation into the wild to restore habitats.
How is seed collected? For each species, we ideally collect 10,000 to 20,000 viable seeds from a single population. Because much of our native Midwestern prairie habitat has been converted to farmland or urban areas, some of our remnant populations can not withstand removal of such large quantities of seeds, and in these cases we collect a minimum of 3,000 seeds. We only harvest up to 20% of the available seed on the day of collection to ensure that the population is not harmed. To adequately capture the genetic diversity of a population, we collect from a minimum of 50 individuals, but try to collect from considerably more. Seeds are collected by program staff and contract botanists. Interested in becoming a contract collector with us? Check out Opportunities to learn more.
Where do we collect? States across the Midwest and northern Great Plains – north to Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Michigan; west to Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma; south to Missouri and Kentucky; and east to Indiana, Ohio, as well as Illinois for 14 states in all. We collect on federal, state, and county government owned sites as well as NGOs such as the Nature Conservancy and private property with permission. See our Where we collect page to learn more.
What happens to the seeds? Once the seeds are collected, they are dried for three weeks in a 15% relative humidity dryer at 15°C. Next, largely with the help of volunteers, the dried seeds are hand-cleaned, counted, weighed and frozen in air-tight foil bags and stored at -20°C. Half of the seed from each collection is sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew where seeds from collecting partners from all over the world will be banked. The remaining half of each collection is divided between two US institutions, with ¼ banked here at the Chicago Botanic Garden and ¼ banked at the National Center for Genetic Resource Preservation in Fort Collins, CO. Germination tests are periodically performed on the seed stored at Kew, as well as the seed stored here at the Chicago Botanic Garden, to ensure that the collections remain viable. Results on seed viability and germination from Kew are available here. The Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement between all collecting partners and the Millennium Seed Bank Project at Kew specifies that no commercialization or profit will result from any genetic resources collected for the project.
How are the species determined? Any species native to our geographic area can be targeted for collection for the Seeds of Success/Millennium Seed Bank Project at the Chicago Botanic Garden – additions to our target list are welcomed and it is frequently updated. We do not collect threatened or endangered, globally rare, non-native, or crop species – and collect only from wild populations, not cultivated or restored. The Center for Plant Conservation collects and banks rare plants in the US for ex-situ conservation. Click here for our Target and Collected species lists.
Can I use seeds collected for the Millennium Seed Bank Project? While the seeds for the seed banking project have been collected primarily for long-term conservation, we understand that research and practical experience is necessary to affect restoration of these species from the seed bank. Therefore, we have developed a Seed Exchange Policy for researchers and restoration practitioners. Our collecting agreements, as well as agreements with other project partners, do not allow commercialization of genetic resources; therefore we are unable to provide seed for commercial interests.
How is the Seeds of Success project funded? Check out our Funders and Sponsors for more information.