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Legume Seed Collection for the Millennium Seed Bank

Seeds of Brachystegia utilis. Photo: E. Vaes.

The Millennium Seed Bank has banked a total of nearly 12,000 species and currently houses 650 million seeds.  These were collected in 131 countries, with recent and ongoing Access and Benefit-sharing Agreements extending our collaborations e.g. Tanzania, China, Israel, Georgia and Bulgaria.  As of January 2006 the MSB has 4446 legume accessions, which amounts to 1740 species in 280 genera.  Legume accessions per year for the last five years display an increase as follows:  2001: 167, 2002: 205, 2003: 216, 2004: 405, and 2005: 555.

The MSB is developing partner projects in several areas of high legume biodiversity value, in particular the underworked drylands of South America and Africa.  Legumes have become a natural major focus of Kew’s seed bank collecting programme within the drylands and thus constitute a large component of Kew’s ex situ conservation work.

Kranner et al (2006) found that viability loss in dry seeds of Pisum sativum, Lathyrus pratensis and Cytisus scoparius coincides with loss and oxidation of glutathione (a major cellular antioxidant). The half-cell reduction potential of glutathione allows us to predict whether a seed will live or die, addressing the current need for a marker of viability in orthodox and recalcitrant seeds. Application to a broader range of organisms (including resurrection plants, lichens, bryophytes and algae) suggests that potent antioxidant machinery is one of the underlying mechanisms of desiccation tolerance (Kranner & Birtic, 2005).

Imbibition tests carried out to date have revealed an absence of physical seed dormancy (PY) in all collections tested from the genus Brachystegia (Leguminosae-Caesalpinoideae).  In view of the importance of the Leguminosae the project is now focussing on all accessions of this family.  This will enable us to analyse for correlations between the occurrence of PY and other factors such as habitat, geographical origin, aridity and climate factors and to generate a predictive model for PY.

The MSB has produced a collection guide to the endemic Legumes of Kenya, and collection guides for Botswana, Malawi, Lebanon, Jordan, and three for South Africa. Fifteen more are in production, including the Legumes of Burkina Faso. These guides use geo-referenced data from herbarium sheets which, coupled with GIS analysis, permit the inclusion of species conservation assessments. The taxonomic emphasis varies from one guide to another, but there is potential to use this capability with herbarium expertise to rapidly work up taxonomic identification guides for wider use in collaboration with partners. 

Species selection for coverage in the Seed Information Database (http://www.kew.org/data/sid/) is presently based on special interest groups such as Leguminosae, and seed biology functional groups (e.g. under-developed embryos). High quality digital images complement information on functional traits, physical, chemical, morphological and ecological data.

Two notable examples of MSB's legume conservation work come from partnerships in the southern hemisphere:

The continued decline of the Australian endemic Acacia chapmanii subsp. australis over the past few years meant that the taxon was upgraded to Declared Rare Flora in 2003. MSB partners collected and banked the species from Drummond Nature Reserve, and are currently running ecological trials to assess an appropriate fire regime for reintroduction.

In Chile the endangered Dalea azurea is restricted to one valley in the area of Paposo in the Atacema Region. MSB expeditions collected only a small number of seeds due to the small size of its populations, but subsequent propogation is producing material which may prove critical for reintroduction and rehabilitation of the species.

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