Plant Biodiversity: How to conserve the green gold for posterity?

Debananda S Ningthoujam *

Prelude

Imagine a world without plants. It would indeed be a desolate one, devoid of the fascinating skein of life-forms. Plants and fungi are essential for the formation of habitats and landscapes. Plants are the building-blocks of ecosystems. If plants and fungi are not allowed to perform their essential functions as happens in a healthy ecosystem, ultimately you and me and all human life will cease to exist on this tiny, fragile blue planet.

Plants are the most wonderful forms of life on the planet. They are 'harvesters of sunlight', trapping energy on which most other life forms-including humans-depend. They are fixed, immobile, and subject to grazing animals and other threats. Yet they silently face all hardships and keep on growing, giving men lessons on survival and nobility. Yet most of the times we ignore these wonderful creatures.

What are plants?

Plants come in various forms. The total number of plant species is not exactly known yet. A likely estimate is approximately 3, 00, 000 plant species on the earth.

The phylum plantae consists of:

• Bryophytes: small plants with leaf-like, stem-like and root-like structures(mosses etc)
• Vascular plants: plants with true leaves, stems, and roots
• Seedless plants: ferns and allied plants
• Seed plants
• Gymnosperms: non-flowering plants, e.g. pine
• Angiosperms: flowering plants, e.g. sunflower
• Monocots: plants whose seeds have 1 cotyledon
• Dicots: plants whose seeds have 2 cotyledons

Plant habitats

Plants grow in several types of habitats, ranging from forests to caves, and deserts to wetlands etc.. The major plant habitats are:

• Forests
• Ponds
• Deserts
• Caves
• Trees(for epiphytes)

What do plants eat?

Most green plants harvest the sunlight to make food. This is the foundation of energy in all food chains. But some plants can eat insects. Some can grow epiphytically on other larger plants.

Threats to plant diversity

The major threats to plant biodiversity are:

• Habitat loss
• Habitat degradation
• Introduced alien species(IAS)
• Pollution
• Disease
• Climate change
• Forest fires
• Logging
• Tourism
• Others

Logging and deforestation are the greatest causes of plant diversity erosion and the culprits are human beings. Climate change is an added threat in recent times. Natural disasters and natural forest wild-fires worsen the fast decline in plant diversity.

Why conserve plants?

Why should we bother to save plants-both cultivated and wild plants? Can't we keep them in the botanical gardens or other artificial habitats? There are myriad reasons for conserving plant biodiversity. Some of the major arguments for saving plant diversity on our planet are that:

• plants provide mankind valuable provisioning services or can act as,
• genetic resources; or, there are
• moral
• aesthetic reasons for saving plant diversity, and most importantly, we have to remember the fact that,
• extinction is irreversible.

Plants perform useful provisioning services for humankind. They provide us valuable food, medicines, timber, fiber and several other products for our daily use. Plants need to be protected just for their beauty and charms. Also man, being at the top of the food chain, has the moral responsibility to protect the 'green people'.

Many of the drugs we use for several human ailments come from plants. Plants and microbes are the major sources of bioactive natural products with applications in medicine, agriculture, and industry. For example, the effective cancer drug, taxol, comes from the bark of pacific yew tree, Taxus baccata.

As humans are the major perpetrators of plant diversity loss and as plants cannot argue for their rights of survival, it is we humans who have to take the responsibility for protecting and conserving the planet's 'green gold'. And we have to remind ourselves that a species gone is gone for ever, and, that, extinction is an irreversible process. Plants also provide livelihood security to many poor communities. However, sustainable use and consumption of plant resources is essential for long-term conservation of our plant biodiversity.

Even wild plants and wild relatives of crop plants are resources that we cannot neglect. These are valuable gene pools for future breeding programmes for development of drought-resistant, flood-resistant, salt-resistant, pest-resistant and other stress-tolerant crops.

Plants make the planet livelier. They inspire us. They are the sources of our myth, religion and rituals. Plants are the building-blocks of all ecosystems. Without plants, all ecosystems will become fragile and would ultimately break down. This will eventually lead to extinction of mankind.

How to conserve plant diversity?

Some of the short-term and long-term programs for plant biodiversity conservation may include:

• ex-situ conservation
• in-situ conservation
• sustainable consumption
• Taking pro-active steps to control climate change

Ex-situ conservation of plants means conserving plants away from the natural settings, for example, in botanical gardens, herbal gardens, seed banks, germplasm banks etc. In-situ conservation refers to saving plant species in their natural locations. This means creation of reserved forests, biosphere reserves, eco-parks etc. Cultural symbols such as sacred groves may yet be another way of in-situ conservation of plant biodiversity.

Coda

A rough estimate is that 1 in 8 plants are threatened with extinction. Many species may remain to be discovered. But the tragedy is that many may go extinct before they are found out. The health of plants and fungi is intimately linked with human well-being. If plants are taken away from the Earth's ecosystems, it won't be far before other animal life and even humans go extinct. We need to protect our majestic, silent, benevolent but immobile friends who harness sun's energy for us and purify our air. Long live the plants!

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* Debananda S Ningthoujam wrote the article for Huieyen Lanpao (English Edition)
The author teaches biochemistry in Manipur University and researches on biodiversity and biotechnology areas esp. microbial biodiversity and biotechnology. He also writes popular science articles on scientific biography and science, environment & biodiversity issues.
This article was webcasted on August 24 2010.

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