In the Conservation Greenhouse at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, where I am lucky enough to volunteer every week, the conversation is almost always about plants. No surprise there! It is such a delight to be able to ask all my plant-nerdy questions and to listen to people who respond both enthusiastically and authoritatively.
The conversation this past week was all about the importance for plants to be able to adapt quickly and smoothly to harsh conditions caused by climate change. The consensus was that the best way for plants to adapt is to have a strong and diverse gene pool. Of course, this means trying to prevent or reduce inbreeding, a concept more easily understood with monkeys and lions (and kings and queens!) than with plants.
Everyone knows that if you’re breeding dogs or horses or cows that you don’t breed siblings. The farther from the family tree you can get, the better for creating a genetic mix that is strong and stable and produces individuals who don’t play banjoes (ha! a quick reference to the movie Deliverance.)
What’s a little more difficult to get your head around is that these same principles apply to plants as well. You can have a hundred endangered plants growing happily in a field but if they are all genetically identical, there will be no depth to the population, no hardy individuals who have just the right gene combination to withstand what may come.
And this is why scientists at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and the State Botanical Gardens in Athens and a hundred other organizations are relentless in tracking the genetic flow of these endangered plants. When placed back into the wild, they need to be put into places where they will increase the genetic diversity to produce offspring that are hardy and adaptable.
In thinking about all this, it occurred to me that even though our own individual gene pool was set at conception, the idea of staying flexible and adapting to varying conditions is as important for us as it is for the plants. With a future that often looks bleak, I think that our best bet to stay off the endangered species list is to find the adaptability to keep our sense of humor and our optimism no matter what happens. These are skills and attributes that will allow us to thrive in a changing world.