The Global Seed Vault to host tree seeds

The vulnerability of the world’s genebanks was the motivativation behind establishing a global seed vault.  Intended as a backup storage facility, this vault stores duplicates (backups) of seed samples from the world’s crop collections representing an insurance policy for future generations to overcome challenges such as climate change and growing populations.  Until now it supported millions of seeds representing every important crop variety available in the World today. 

^{Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Photo: Anna Rehnberg/Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute}

But the importance of preserving the genetic diversity of tree species has been also recognized. Thus, for the first time forest tree seeds will be officially deposited and stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The event  will take place on the 26th February 2015. 

The genetic diversity of forest tree species worldwide is threatened by a number of factors such as climate change and intensive forest management activities. Fragmentation of populations, browsing, pests and diseases are other factors affecting tree species diversity.

Initially, the first seeds will come from the most important trees in the Nordic region: the Norway spruce (Picea abies ) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris).  Storing forest seeds in the Vault will secure longterm conservation of forest trees, facilitate monitoring of long-term changes in genetic diversity of the natural forest and will help understand changes in genetic diversity taking place during breeding operations. 

218 seed lots from the Norwegian Forest Seed Center are now being selected for the Svalbard seed vault. The oldest one comes from a pine sample in Tranøy in Norway which was collected in 1938 and still shows  78 % germination. Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland will soon join in with seeds from their forests as the long term storage of forest tree seeds at Svalbard is a Nordic cooperation. Forest tree seeds will arrive in the future from other participating countries as well. 

_{Original text by Kjersti Bakkebø Fjellstad here} 

_{More information about the Global Seed Vault, to be found here}