A ROYAL Botanic Garden scientist has claimed that she and her colleagues are “working against the clock” to conserve plants in the face of climate change.
Speaking to Scottish Field yesterday, Professor Olwen Grace described the challenges climate change poses for conservationists.
The Royal Botanics in Edinburgh, where Professor Grace works, hosts around three million plant specimens from across the world, some even collected by Charles Darwin himself.
Olwen spoke on the struggles she and her team face in preserving the millions of rare species at the Botanics, revealing that one of the most difficult aspects of her job was witnessing biodiversity loss, with climate change as the driving factor.
With plant species increasingly under risk from climate change, Olwen and others like her work to preserve the rare species in whatever way they can.
Olwen recently took part in the digitisation of the one millionth species from the Royal Botanics herbarium, choosing a lichen collected on Ben Nevis.
The lichen’s genome will be sequenced and added to the Darwin Tree of Life project which aims to sequence the genomes of all of the UK’s plants, trees and wildlife.
Work at the Royal Botanics also includes using surviving specimens as ‘seed donors’ to preserve species.
Samples collected from a plant in 1903 in South America were used as ‘seed donors’ in 2008 to boost the genetic diversity of the species in the Botanic Gardens.
Speaking to Scottish Field yesterday Olwen said: “One of the most difficult aspects of my job is witnessing biodiversity loss and the impact this has on people’s lives, including my colleagues who care so much about our natural environment.
“Climate change means that we’re working against the clock to describe and conserve plants.
“I’m determined to continue to find new ways to work smarter, so that we can conserve plant biodiversity in Scotland and throughout the world. It’s our toolkit for resilience in the future.”
The Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh has been contacted for comment.
