A research project hosted by the CAS Kunming Institute of Botany to investigate the floral germplasm resources on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was initiated recently in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province.
Under the title of "Investigation & Preservation of Wild Floral Germplasm Resources in the Specific Habitat of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau," the new initiative is funded by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.
As a natural geographical unit, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is noted for its abundant trove of floral diversity. According to taxonomic statistics, it is home to more than 15,000 native species of vascular plants, accounting for half of the national total, more than 35% of which are endemic ones. Another unmatched characteristic of the Plateau is its special and extreme traits in its ecological setting, featuring high elevation, low temperature and anoxia (low content of oxygen in the air). In addition, the Plateau is dotted with many arid wastelands, salt lakes, saline meadows, alkali boglands, hot-dry gulches and humid valleys. In the present-day world, the Plateau is a few places endowed with such a multicolored medley of diverse and distinctive climate types
Scientists say that the genes and their products of plants in a special ecological setting are a precious natural legacy to be explored. At present, both the special eco-system and its flora on the Plateau is facing more and more serious threats due to the intensified human encroachment, over-exploitation of the native resources and global warming-up. By now, therefore, it is imperious to team up scientists to make an all-round survey to collect, sample, store and preserve valuable data on the floral germplasm resources on the extremities and frontiers of the living kingdom. The nurture of a sustainable development of these resources is a proper approach in response to the country's strategic demands, the scientists say.
Under the coordination of Prof. SUN Hang, vice director-general of KIZ, the project will involve researchers from 12 research bodies across the country. On the basis of the newly established Germplasm Bank for Wildlife in China's Southwest, the project will conduct investigation, collection and storage of floral germplasm samples and specimens indigenous to the Plateau. Its objectives include the construction of a complete system for keeping up and storage of the floral germplasm resources, which is to be composed of an integrative database and information-sharing platform, offering technical guarantee for utilization, protection and preservation of the resources as well as the safety of the national bio-resources of strategic significance, at the same time providing fundamental materials and scientific grounds for national decision makers.
The first step of the project is to investigate the distributive layout of the Plateau's flora according to the research agenda. By founding of an informative platform it has planned to establish a database on the basis of an integrated collection of all flora-related data to offer an all-round, science-oriented, convenient and speedy service to all qualified users, including a consultant service offered to decision makers in various governmental departments. Based on this, wide sampling expeditions are to be carried out for collecting seeds, vegetative forms, DNA materials and sampled specimens. In the same time, the germplasmic resources extracted from them are to be scientifically preserved so that the country's most abundant database on the Plateau flora is to be erected under the support of this project and to play its constructive role in biodiversityh protection, rational utilization of the floral trove and theoretical research of the Plateau botany.
