The unique role of seed banking and cryobiotechnologies in plant conservation

A future sustainable world requires concerted efforts to conserve plant biodiversity. Using an integrated approach, botanic gardens, arboreta, universities, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organizations are addressing that challenge. This paper summarizes some of the technological advances, in an ever-growing toolbox, that increase the scope of taxa that are conserved ex situ as well as the lifespans of diverse plant tissues that can be used as germplasm. The application of cryobiotechnologies increases the potential for conserving all plant biodiversity. Restoration of plant biodiversity into the future will require institutional collaborations among living collections, seed banks, and cryobanks to ensure technology transfer, information gathering and sharing, and capacity building in centers of biodiversity.