Banking on the Seed Bank Project

San Diego County is a recognized biodiversity hotspot with an incredibly diverse native flora. This diversity is under constant threat from habitat loss and fragmentation, particularly from intensive coastal development.

Without concerted conservation efforts, many native plant species will decline or disappear within our lifetime, with subsequent impact on plant communities and the native animals that depend on them. Seed banks can provide vital insurance against species extinction or local extirpation by conserving plant germplasm for research and restoration. Stored seed resources can buffer native populations against natural catastrophes such as wildfires and protect against the erosion of genetic diversity by land development and habitat fragmentation.

The Applied Plant Ecology division is working in partnership with Kew Royal Botanic Gardens and others to collect and bank a conservation collection of 400 native plant species in San Diego County over the next 3 years. Currently, we have collected and stored seeds of 170 species, and are therefore almost halfway to our goal of 400 species. Once collected seeds are cleaned and dried, they and placed in both short- and long-term storage. Periodic germination tests evaluate seed storage success. Half of the seeds remain here at the Seed Bank, while the remaining seeds are sent to Kew for storage. During the next 3 years, we will expand our seed collections to additional sites in San Diego County and continue with the time-intensive processes of indentifying, cleaning, and storing large numbers of seeds.