Today about a third of world plant species face a threat of extinction due to devastating human activities that are contributing to the loss of plant diversity at a distressing rate contributing to the reduced ecosystem. The reduced plant cover we are facing in the world to is hugely contributed by our ferocious activities such as over-harvesting and over-exploitation, use of exotic plant specious, land-use change, urbanization, environmental pollution and other activities that are not environmentally conscious. Plants play a vital role in our lives given that they are responsible for cleaning the air we breathe, source of food, medicine as well source of beauty and home to many animal species, therefore, we need to up our efforts to design integrative approaches that are focused on plant conservation particularly the rare species that are facing extinction. Given the importance of plants to humans and high risks of some species becoming extinct both public and private institutions have stepped up their conservation measures which have contributed to the emergence of many botanic conservation gardens, these gardens play a key role in the protection of endangered plant species, provide data for scientific research, promote awareness and also of human purposes. There are a variety of reasons why plant botanic gardens have become popular today to learn more continue reading the article.
One of the reasons for having plant botanical gardens is to increase the world plant species biodiversity in an attempt to counter the plant cover lose that is contributed by vicious human activities and climate change, today there are over 2500 botanical gardens with over 6 million accessions of living plant, this is equivalent to a quarter of the world plant species which contribute greatly to the conservation of endangered species and diversification of plant species. Find out more about Tree Shrub Palm Bamboo Fern Cycad Succulent climber Herb Aquatic Orchid on this page.
The other role of botanical gardens is in scientific research, botanical gardens serve as a taxonomic research center, researchers also find plant botanical gardens important in providing valuable plant ecology data such as a phenological indication of climate change, collection of data that can help them assess plant-animal interactions, data relating to plant physiology among other important data. Botanical gardens can also provide plant information that contributes to a strong understanding of their functional characteristics such as trade-offs between species traits and plant performance. This page has more info about Tree Shrub Palm Bamboo Fern Cycad Succulent climber Herb Aquatic Orchid.
Plant botanic conservation are important in/ex situ conservation and utilization, given that there estimated 6 million accessions in botanical gardens with over 80 thousand plant species it provides an excellent opportunity to understand the threatened species, furthermore the ex-situ conservation which means conservation of biological diversity from their natural habitat has contributed greatly in protection, maintaining and support of threatened plant species. Those are some main roles of botanic garden conservation but also important roles of these botanic gardens include spreading awareness to the public about threatened plant species and the need to protect the earth's plant cover. Check out this post that has expounded on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanical_garden.
