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Conservation of important plants from the Ionian Islands at the Balkan Botanic Garden of Kroussia, N Greece: using GIS to link the in situ collection data with plant propagation and ex situ cultivation

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Abstract

The Balkan Botanic Garden of Kroussia (BBGK) is dedicated to the ex situ conservation of native plants of Greece and the Balkans. The BBGK has formulated a conservation strategy for the collection of wild plant material for propagation, prioritizing mainly the endemic, rare, endangered, threatened and vulnerable plants of Europe found in different regions of Greece. Its aim is to contribute to the implementation of Target 8 of the Global and European Strategies for Plant Conservation at local, regional and international scales. In order to (i) define the ecological profile of the in situ requirements preferred and/or tolerated by each selected species, (ii) develop rapid and effective species-specific propagation protocols, and (iii) improve the cultivation of species of conservation concern in BBGK’s nurseries and ex situ conservation sections, geographical coordinates and in situ collection data obtained for each taxon were imported into a Geographic Information System environment (GIS). This information was then linked with several digital GIS thematic layers, including topographic, geological, edaphic, climatic, precipitation and temperature data derived from digital databases. Based on this approach, sexual and asexual propagation of plants from the Ionian Islands were conducted and rapid and effective baseline protocols were developed for 29 taxa (species and subspecies); four are presented here in detail and species-specific ex situ propagation and cultivation guidelines are given. Most of the taxa originating from the Ionian Islands were propagated by cuttings (55.2%) or seeds (34.5%), while the rest were propagated by root division at a rate from 1.7 to 2. The first round of propagation achieved a success rate ranging from 15 to 50% for 3 taxa, from 60 to 80% for 8 taxa and from more than 80 to 100% for 16 taxa, while the ex situ cultivation of the wild and propagated plant material has, so far, been successful. The application of GIS exemplified here presents a sensible and invaluable tool with a broad-scale potential in enhancing the prospects of the ex situ conservation of priority species collected from diverse environmental conditions in man-made habitats such as botanic gardens.

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Abbreviations

BBGK:

Balkan Botanic Garden of Kroussia, N Greece

CBD:

Convention on Biological Diversity

CORINE:

Coordination of Information on the Environment

EC:

European Commission

ESDB:

European Soil Database

ESPC:

European Strategy for Plant Conservation

FAO:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States of America

GIS:

Geographical Information Systems

GSPC:

Global Strategy for Plant Conservation

IPEN:

International Plant Exchange Network

IPS:

Important Plant Species

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Marc Van Liedekerke for granting access to ESDB v.2, as well as Dr. James Cullen and the Trustees of the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust for financial aid to the Ionian Islands Project. The authors are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Systematic Botany & Phytogeography, Department of Botany, School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 541 24, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Nikolaos Krigas

  2. Forestry Office of Poros, National Forest Service of Piraeus, Prefecture of Attica, 180 20, Poros, Greece

    Georgios Mouflis

  3. Laboratory of Conservation and Evaluation of the Native and Floricultural Species-Balkan Botanic Garden of Kroussia, National Agricultural Research Foundation, P.O. Box 60125, 570 01, Thermi, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Katerina Grigoriadou & Eleni Maloupa

Authors
  1. Nikolaos Krigas
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  2. Georgios Mouflis
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  3. Katerina Grigoriadou
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  4. Eleni Maloupa
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Correspondence to Nikolaos Krigas.

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Krigas, N., Mouflis, G., Grigoriadou, K. et al. Conservation of important plants from the Ionian Islands at the Balkan Botanic Garden of Kroussia, N Greece: using GIS to link the in situ collection data with plant propagation and ex situ cultivation. Biodivers Conserv 19, 3583–3603 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9917-7

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