In 2018, less than 250 plants were listed as Extinct on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. In 2019, an article published in Nature changed all that.
Aelys M. Humphreys from Stockholm University and her colleagues found that 571 plants had gone extinct between 1753 and 2018, more than four times the previous estimate and more than two times higher than the rate facing amphibians, birds, and mammals. On average, the study indicated that 2.3 plant species have gone extinct annually for 2.5 centuries, but extinction rates are almost two times higher today than before 1900.
Climate Change And Plant Life
As climate change ramps up and extreme weather events become more common, more plants and their ecosystems are being placed at risk.
The decrease in biodiversity leads to completely disrupted ecosystems, harming or possibly leading to the extinction of the species that relied on those plants, leaving room for invasive species.
Additionally, landscapes can become less resilient, more at risk of erosion, and more susceptible to the adverse effects of a changing climate.
This situation affects people, too. “We depend on plants directly for food, shade, and construction materials, and indirectly for ‘ecosystem services’ such as carbon fixation, oxygen creation, and even improvement in human mental health through enjoying green spaces,” Dr. Rob Salguero-Gómez from the University of Oxford explained to BBC. We also risk losing plant species that are valuable for cultural or medicinal purposes.
One of the more recent plants to go extinct is the St. Helena Olive. It was found on the island of Tristan da Cunha in St. Helena, where Napoleon was sent to exile after he was defeated at Waterloo. In the 19th century, only 12 to 15 trees remained on Diana’s Peak, the highest point of a mountain ridge. Due to threats like deforestation and pests, the last wild tree died in 1994, and all human-raised ones were gone by 2003.
Photo Courtesy Wikimedia
It is essential to maintain a large supply of native seeds to prevent the same fate from befalling other plants. However, the demand is so high that the supply has been unable to keep up. As a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study described, “the insufficient supply of seeds from native plants is a major barrier to ecological restoration and other revegetation projects across the U.S.”
Government Action To Change The Tide
Even before the discovery of the dire number of extinct plants, the federal government had been emphasizing a long-term plan for developing and providing access to high-quality, locally adapted native seeds for the restoration of native plants.
After the wildfires in the west of the country between 1999 and 2000, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages 245 million acres of American land, launched its Plant Conservation and Restoration Program. In 2001, BLM created the program’s Native Plant Materials Development Process to smooth the ten to 20-year timeline of getting those native plant materials to take root as permanent and thriving species.
Photo Courtesy Bureau of Land Management
The first step of the process, called Seeds of Success (SOS), involves collecting native seeds for research, development, conservation, and ecosystem restoration. This work involves collaboration between federal, local government, nonprofit, and private partners, eventually expanding to botanic gardens, arboreta, and zoos. It acted as a response to 2002’s congressional mandate to build a native seed supply.
The program was ratified as a national native seed collection program under the direction of BLM in 2008. Another Memorandum of Understanding signed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Park Service in 2023 provided additional funding and coordination for this step.
None of this would be possible without the teams that conduct these collections. Crews are trained in person in Boise, Idaho, or through one of several virtual options annually.
Botanists make lists of target species for the collections, including those at risk of natural disasters or with value for ecosystems or restoration purposes.
The collection crews spend a lot of advance time planning because they may lack wi-fi service for a chunk of their expeditions, such as when using helicopters to access remote areas of Alaska. The teams take at least 3,000 live seeds and important data about them at the collection sites.
Finally, the seeds are cleaned. For example, the Western SOS collection program sends seeds to The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Bend Seed Extractory in Bend, Oregon. Then, part of every collection goes into long-term storage at -20 degrees Celsius at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service’s seed banks, like the Plant Germplasm Introduction and Testing Research Unit in Pullman, Washington, or the National Lab for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Today, SOS’s National Collection houses more than 27,000 native seed collections from 44 states and 94 ecoregions and has focused on restoring sagebrush in Greater Sage-Grouse habitat areas.
Photo Courtesy Tom Koerner/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
However, the process does not end with collection. Later steps in the Native Plant Materials Development Process include:
- Research on species biology;
- Field trials to develop the best way to develop eco-regionally adapted seeds;
- Partnerships with private farmers and growers for large-scale production of the seeds;
- Creation of seed storage capacity — currently estimated at 2.1 million pounds — so they are ready for restoration purposes; and
- The use of those seeds to restore native plant populations.
One of the most successful stories comes out of the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware, a 4,000-acre freshwater habitat flooded with saltwater from Hurricane Sandy. Thanks to a $3.5 million grant from the Department of the Interior through its Hurricane Sandy Supplemental Mitigation Fund and the SOS East Program, the biggest tidal marsh restoration project in the eastern part of the country was made possible.
Not only did dredged sand restore 8,000 feet of coastline, but 17 species of seeds were collected and dropped from a plane onto the marsh’s mudflats. The results speak for themselves. Between 2015 and 2017, more than 500 acres of marsh saw increased growth from 29 species of plants, more than half of which were native, including smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora).
Photo Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Although BLM is the source of the biggest seed collection program in the country, other agencies are also hard at work with similar goals. The USFS is developing native plant materials. For example, the agency’s White River National Forest Native Plant Materials Program managed to bring two types of grass, slender wheatgrass and mountain brome, onto the commercial market in Colorado.
Meanwhile, its Cooperative Forestry program works with private landowners and communities to conserve and steward forested lands.
Additionally, USDA’s Farm Service Agency runs a Conservation Reserve Program, which offers annual rental payments to farmers who place some land into conservation for contracts spanning 10 to 15 years. Refraining from agricultural work on the land allows habitats to flourish.
The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service also operates a Plant Materials Program. Twenty-five Plant Materials Centers, representing different ecological regions, work to develop vegetation-based solutions that can improve air quality, soil health, and wildlife habitats, as well as prevent erosion and stabilize coastlines.
In our next piece, we will explore the dawn of a new era in the U.S. with the country’s National Seed Strategy, which brings coordination to these agencies’ similar types of work.
