In 2008 the initiative added to its mission: Seeds of Success aims to collect seeds from all of the 14,000 or so native plant species in the United States. Reseeding plants in public lands destroyed by wildfire to stabilize, rehabilitate and restore ecosystems was the original mission of Seeds of Success, a Bureau of Land Management project started in 2001. Seed banks also use their stocks proactively: regenerating failing populations, deploying less disease prone stock to stricken areas, and reseeding after devastating natural disasters to provide building blocks for ecosystem recovery. They house seeds from wild crop relatives, and from crop regimes that have fallen out of favor in the modern-day market but are still important food crop puzzle pieces for agriculture. These seed banks serve communities in real-time. Occasionally, preserved seeds are germinated (made to grow) to test their viability. In the lab, the seeds are cleaned and sorted before being stored in controlled temperature- and humidity- conditions. They record the local conditions like soil content and neighboring plants, because interaction with the local ecosystem can be vital for species success. In the field, botanists serving seed banks attempt to collect a wide range of genetic diversity within each species by gathering seeds from all reaches of the plantвЂ™s range. The BLM Alaska State OfficeвЂ™s collecting team tracks down seeds from White Cottongrass to add to Seeds of SuccessвЂ™ growing inventory. While the Svalbard Valt is an iconic example, there are actually many seed collections scattered across the globe. The vault is meant to withstand nuclear strikes, nuclear winter, disease outbreaks, and catastrophic natural disasters. You may have heard the Svalbard collection referred to as a doomsday vault, because the seeds are held as insurance against catastrophe. Banks like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway are collections that serve as gene banks, housing seeds from a wide range of species. Seed banks are one tool in the fight to preserve biodiversity.

Our uncertain climate future is altering habitats so swiftly that plants canвЂ™t keep up, and weвЂ™re struggling to define how best to respond. They are an insurance against an uncertain future. On a remote island in Norway, deep within an old coal mine sealed behind blast doors, seeds sit in the cold and quiet and wait. Image Timo Palo (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported) The entrance of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Spitsbergen, Norway, 2011. Understanding Climate Change Through Archaeology.Climate Change and Brant Geese in the Y-K Delta.Toggle navigation Frontier Scientists Menu

Doomsday vault in spitzberg