Genome and herbarium voucher material of Gondwanan taxa preserved, Tasmania

  • Status of project

    Completed
  • Region

    Oceania
  • Country

    Australia
  • Programme

    BGCI
  • Workstream

    Saving Plants
Funded by GGI-Gardens Awards Program, in partnership with United States Botanic Garden
Project Completed: 2024
Institution: Inala Jurassic Garden

Additional genome and herbarium voucher material of Gondwanan taxa from the Inala Jurassic Gardens Living Collection for the GGI-Gardens program

Project goal

The Inala Jurassic Garden (IJG) on Bruny Island in Tasmania is a living collection of approximately 700 plant species from ancient lineages with Gondwanan connections. Many of these are now threatened by the effects of climate change (e.g. changed fire regimes and weather patterns) and human influence (e.g. overharvesting). The emphasis of the garden has expanded since its inception to include conservation and propagation of threatened species.

Key achievements

In March 2023, IJG was the only Australian garden recipient to be awarded one of ten global GGI-Gardens Partner Awards to provide genetic material from their living collection not previously represented in Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) biorepositories.

Dr Catherine Young collecting herbarium specimens

Genetic samples and herbarium voucher specimens were collected from 26 genera, 18 of which are new to GGBN and 14 families, one of which is new to GGBN. Seven threatened species, including three listed as critically endangered and three endangered species in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, were included in the project. These samples will be stored in perpetuity for use by researchers from around the globe.

Christine Howells and Dr Andrew Kingston preparing specimens

The Inala Jurassic Garden is proud to help build capacity and provide resources for global plant biodiversity genome research and support conservation and preservation programs
said Dr. Tonia Cochran, the garden’s owner, Curator and Collection Manager.
It is critical to preserve genome material, especially from threatened species and this project aligns well with our other conservation-based work we undertake through our not-for-profit organisation the Inala Nature Foundation and our ecotourism enterprise Inala Nature Tours”.

Tonia and her team at IJG are very thankful for the support of the GGI-Gardens initiative, the United States Botanic Garden and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and recognise the value of this award program.

Genome samples in silica gel for long-term storage