Forest tree seeds arrive at Svalbard’s ‘Doomsday vault’

The Svalbard “doomsday” vault – widely known for protecting global food crop seeds – has accepted its first delivery of forest tree species seeds.

Norway spruce and Scots pine samples have entered the vault inside a mountain on the Arctic archipelago.

The frozen depository opened in 2008 and is designed to withstand all natural and human disasters.

Researchers hope the tree seed samples will help monitor long-term genetic changes in natural forests.

Frozen forests

Spruce seeds (Image: Erkki Oksanen)
The Norway spruce seeds were the first of many to enter the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
“The possibility to have seed samples stored in the vault is a great opportunity to complement our forest tree gene conservation, which is based on in situ gene reserve forests,” explained Mari Rusanen, a researcher for Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), one of the organisations involved in the seed collection.

“The beauty of in situ conservation is in its dynamic nature – we aim to converse natural genetic diversity per se, rather than specific genes or genotypes.

“However, in the seed vault we will have long-term, ex situ, conservation/preservation of the existing genetic composition of the selected gene reserve forests.

Ms Rusanen told BBC News that the vault offered peace of mind and security in the unlikely event of a devastating human or natural disaster.

But she added: “For me, personally, the catastrophe scheme is not a major motivation.

“It is more important that these samples will, in the future, provide an opportunity to monitor long-term changes in the genetic composition of our natural forests.”

Read more at:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31661288