Seed banking for biodiversity conservation - The Threatened Flora Seed Centre
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- Last Updated on Monday, 04 February 2013 12:23
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About the Threatened Flora Seed Centre (TFSC)
The Threatened Flora Seed Centre is Western Australia's principal seed banking facility for rare, threatened and poorly known native plant species.
The primary functions of the Threatened Flora Seed Centre are:
- To store seed of Western Australia's conservation significant flora for indefinite periods of time whilst maintaining the highest possible viability of the seed.
- To maintain an integrated database on seed provenance and seed biology for each plant species collected.
The seed centre aims to store sufficient genetic resources from each threatened species to ensure its successful reintroduction and establishment in the wild if extinction occurs and underpins many of DEC's plant recovery activities. The centre currently houses over 3200 collections. All seed is sourced from the wild and fully documented.
The seed bank was established in 1992 and is located at the Western Australian Herbarium. It has a drying room, walk-in cool room (4°C), freezer room (-20°C) and a laboratory equipped to conduct seed research. During its 17 years of operation, the Threatened Flora Seed Centre has made significant progress towards the ex situ seed storage of the State's rare and threatened flora.
The Threatened Flora Seed Centre is involved in national (eg.AuSCaR- Australian Seed Conservation and Research ) and international (eg. Millennium Seed Bank Project) seed conservation projects that contribute towards meeting Australia's obligations to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.
As DEC collects and stores seed for conservation purposes, seed from the Threatened Flora Seed Centre is not available to the public.
Threatened Flora Seed Centre Staff
- Anne Cochrane
TFSC Manager / Senior Research Scientist - Andrew Crawford
Principal Technical Officer (seed collections & curation) - Anne Monaghan
Technical Officer (seed curation) - Simone Dudley
Technical Officer (seed curation)
Contact TFSC
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