Ex situ conservation of threatened higher plants in Chinese botanical gardens

Ex situ conservation of botanical gardens is one of the important approaches to protect threatened plants. Through 52 investigated botanical gardens which had the major function of ex situ conservation, we analyzed the status and problems of ex situ conservation of China’s threatened higher plants based on the Threatened Species List of China’s Higher Plants, and proposed some suggestions for botanical gardens’ future development. During the investigation, we found that 1754 threatened species preserved in 52 botanical gardens, including 252 Critically Endangered (CR) species, 589 Endangered (EN) species and 913 Vulnerable (VU) species. These botanical gardens had protected over 45 % of known China’s threatened species, and reached about 60 % of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) Target 8. However, we also revealed that botanical gardens had low coverage of threatened species, especially bryophytes and pteridophyte. About 78 % of ex situ conservation threatened species were existed in less than 5 botanical gardens. Distribution of ex situ conservation of threatened species was inconsistent with their natural habitat. Furthermore, botanical gardens did not have enough capacity to cope with the crisis of species extinction. Therefore, we suggest that botanical gardens should strengthen information management, increase the proportion of threatened species, attach great importance to the threatened species with few collections and low safety, and make a positive and reasonable response to the threat status of plants.