Press Release

Nature publish ground-breaking research led by RBG Kew and South African scientists

After several years of collaborative work, scientists based at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's Jodrell Laboratory, and at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, together with other colleagues around the globe, have published a ground-breaking paper in the leading journal Nature.

Dr. Vincent Savolainen, Félix Forest and Richard Grenyer (see Notes to Editors below) all worked closely with other scientists in South Africa, the UK, Australia and the USA to tackle one of the main problems facing conservationists - finding the best way to preserve biodiversity.

The paper, entitled ‘preserving the evolutionary potential of floras in biodiversity hotspots' challenges traditional conservation methods by investigating an undisputed biodiversity hotspot – the Cape of South Africa.

Building on a collaborative Darwin Initiative-funded project between RBG Kew, the South African National Biodiversity Institute and the University of Cape Town, the scientists spent three years collecting data to build a comprehensive map and evolutionary tree that included the entirity of the Cape flora. This is the largest evolutionary tree yet built for an entire flora and covers over 9,000 plant species – many of which are endangered and only found in the Cape.

They discovered that, although the western part of the Cape has an impressive number of plant species, all of these are very closely related. The eastern part of the Cape, on the other hand, has fewer, but more divergent species.

Plant conservation efforts have previously focused on areas where there are a high number of different species, known as high species richness. However this paper stresses that biodiversity is defined by not just the number of species but also the difference between them. In particular, the genetic variation between species and the evolutionary novelty they provide is now recognised as an increasingly important element of biodiversity.

Traditional methods of measuring biodiversity would concentrate efforts on the western part of the Cape, however these discoveries indicate that specific conservation efforts should also be directed towards the eastern part of the Cape.

The authors suggest that using this evolutionary method may better preserve plants for their medicinal and economic uses. The paper also highlights the conflict between national and international conservation responsibilities and the need for an integrated, global effort to preserve the future of Earth's biodiversity.

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Notes to Editors

For more detailed information contact Anna Quenby, Catherine Owen or Oliver Basciano in the Kew Gardens Press Office, telephone +44 (0)20 8332 5607, e-mail pr@kew.org.

Dr Vincent Savolainen from RBG Kew was the coordinator of the project, Dr Félix Forest was a Smuts Memorial Botanical fellow based for two years at the South African National Botanical Institute and the University of Cape Town, and Dr Richard Grenyer is a phyloinformatician at RBG Kew.

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

RBG, Kew is a world famous scientific organisation, internationally respected for its outstanding living collection of plants and world-class herbarium as well as its scientific expertise in plant diversity, conservation and sustainable development in the UK and around the world. Kew Gardens is a major international visitor attraction and its 132 hectares of landscaped gardens attract over one million visitors per year. Kew was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2003 and represents over 250 years of historical landscape. www.kew.org.

The Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species

The Darwin Initiative is a small grants programme that aims to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of resources around the world. The Initiative is funded and administered by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). www.darwin.gov.uk.

The South African National Biodiversity Institute

SANBI is a leading institute in African biodiversity science with internationally recognised expertise in bioregional programmes, plant systematics, and conservation science. The institute includes world class herbaria as well as a network of eight botanic gardens that house exceptional plant collections. The world renowned Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2004, www.sanbi.org.

The Botany Department at the University of Cape Town

The Botany Department at the University of Cape Town strives for excellence in teaching and research in physiology, ecology, evolution, systematics and conservation of terrestrial and aquatic plants, particularly as they relate to the flora of the Southwestern Cape Region of South Africa. www.uct.ac.za/depts/botany.

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