Ex situ conservation of Quercus oglethorpensis: A molecular genetic approach to living collection management 2016
Chicago Botanic Garden

Genetics, GIS

Conservation is essential to preserving biodiversity as habitat loss, non-native invasive species, and climate change are threatening species at an alarming rate. Two broad form of conservation are employed in situ and ex situ. In situ conservation works to preserve a species and the evolutionary capacity of that species within the native habitat, while ex situ conservation offers strategies to preserve a threatened species at dedicated facilities and managed landscapes outside of a native habitat. The most common ex situ conservation strategy is long-term seed banking. However, not all plants have seeds that can tolerate the typical conditions of a seed bank, so in order to preserve the threatened species other methods of conservation must be used.

One alternative method - and focus of this project - is cultivated living collections of threatened and rare plants. Growing living plants ex situ may be the only option for these ‘exceptional’ species and many challenges exist in managing these collections. Often insufficient knowledge of population biology and demography of a threatened species limits conservation managers’ ability to maximize the genetic diversity and reintroduction potential of an ex situ collection. These challenges and limitations can be addressed by incorporating molecular genetic data into the conservation planning of ex situ collections. This project will build on previous work and tests novel ex situ population management tools for threatened plants. Using a threatened species from the Southeastern United States, Quercus oglethorpensis (Oglethore Oak), we will answer multiple questions about the use of molecular genetic data and ex situ population-management software (PMx: software for demographic and genetic analysis and management of pedigreed populations) for improving genetic capture of ex situ collections and maximizing reintroduction potential.

The intern will assist in this project by working with the project mentor to process and analyze Quercus oglethorpensis DNA samples collected from the wild and ex situ. Specifically, the intern will extract DNA from leaf tissue and use previously developed microsatellite makers to score genotypes of collected samples. The data collected will be used to measure diversity of of wild and ex situ collections, and it will be incorporated into the testing of PMx software. Additionally, the intern may work with the project mentor to input plant location data into a GIS for spatial analysis. 

Intern(s)