Getting to the Root of Extinction

Species conservation doesn’t just apply to faraway rain forests or endangered whales.

A network of botanical institutions is launching an unprecedented study of endangered native U.S. plants to determine their potential for recovery and in hopes of preventing their disappearance. Those plants range from the Western lily to the Tennessee coneflower, says the Center for Plant Conservation.

The center, a St. Louis-based nonprofit organization comprising more than 30 botanical organizations throughout the nation, was founded in 1984 to stop the extinction of native plants. Center officials said an analysis on this scale had never been performed before at a national level.

The center estimates that about 2,000 plant species, or about 10% of the nation’s native flora, are at risk of extinction.

The $500,000 study aims to look at endangered or threatened plants and also those being considered for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Much information has already been gathered on endangered plants, but the new study, due for completion at the end of 2006, will bring it together and update the data to provide an overall snapshot of plant populations.

Participants will not go into the field to gather data. Rather, they will collate information already gathered by federal workers, contractors and amateur botanists.

The study of more than 800 species will give federal agencies information about how much of an endangered plant species is on federal land.

“We’re going to try to let them know what they’ve got, about the robustness of their populations and how what they’ve got stacks up against what’s available for recovery,” said Kathryn Kennedy, the center’s executive director. The study also will provide a summary of which species are most dependent on private lands for recovery.

The information could lead to new partnerships between groups trying to bring back a self-sustaining plant population, or help them set budgets and priorities for endangered plants.

Center officials also hope the study will reveal success stories, plants no longer in danger because of recovery programs.

Diversity in nature is important because a plant’s extinction could lead to the decline of animal, insect, other plant populations and the environment, said Bruce Rittenhouse, the center’s conservation manager.

“They are the canary in the coal mine,” he said.

In addition to food, plants provide fiber, fuels and pharmaceuticals for human use.

Eighty percent of rare plants are closely related to economically important plants, Kennedy said. Native plants in the U.S. have properties used to treat sickness, fight agricultural pests and improve crops.

Kennedy said the study also would be essential to other work done by the center. For instance, the botanical network maintains the National Collection of Endangered Plants, which the center believes is the world’s largest living collection of rare plants.

The collection includes hundreds of the nation’s most imperiled native plants. An imperiled plant is one vulnerable to extinction because of habitat loss, invasion by exotic species, over-collection or pollution.

For the collection, live plant material is taken and then maintained as seed, cuttings with roots or mature plants.

Scientists use the banked seeds and plants to stabilize existing populations of imperiled plants and to reintroduce new populations in proper habitats.

The new study is being done in partnership with the nonprofit NatureServe in Washington, D.C. It is funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, ChevronTexaco and the Edward K. Love Conservation Foundation in St. Louis.