Chicago Botanic Garden

The Chicago Botanic Garden will apply the zoo community's approach to managing captive animals to the conservation of threatened plant species. The methodology is intended to provide protocols for managing living collections of threatened plants across multiple institutions to maintain maximum genetic diversity and ensure their chances for long-term survival. Through partnerships with the Brookfield Zoo, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, National Tropical Botanical Garden, Montgomery Botanical Center, and Atlanta Botanical Garden, the project team will build and test digital infrastructure using six carefully chosen plant species that cannot be seed-banked. Once developed and evaluated, the team will disseminate the software and approach through professional conferences, publications, and by developing a user manual. The user manual will outline how to apply this approach to other plant species, as well as providing a guide to using the approach to help with species prioritization.