Climb aboard Asia's largest plant, Noah's Ark: more than 80,000 precious seeds preserved, accounting for 36% of the total number of species of flowering plants in China

Source: Global Times

A four-story building in the northern suburbs of Kunming, low-key but prominent: this is the Southwest China Wildlife Germplasm Resource Bank (hereinafter referred to as the Germplasm Bank), one of the world's two wildlife germplasm resource preservation facilities established according to international standards, and is considered to be the largest plant in Asia, "Noah's Ark". The Global Times reporter visited here on the 13th.

Wildlife germplasm resource bank in southwest China. Image source: Visual China

Under the careful protection of scientific researchers, by the end of 2020, the germplasm bank has preserved 10,601 species of 85,046 seeds, accounting for 36% of the total number of species of flowering plants in China, and together with the British "Millennium Seed Bank" and the Norwegian "Svalbard Global Seed Bank", it has become the leader in global biodiversity conservation.

"Germplasm resources, also known as genetic resources, contain all the genetic information of organisms, resources that determine various genetic traits and characteristics of organisms, and are very important national strategic biological resources," Cai Jie, director of the Germplasm Bank Germplasm Preservation Center, told the Global Times. "Yunnan has about 50% of the plant species in the country, which provides very convenient conditions for the germplasm bank in conservation and scientific research."

According to reports, seeds are unique propagation and dispersal units of gymnosperms and angiosperms, and are also the starting point of seed plant life. In today's situation where biodiversity is under serious threat, the conservation and utilization of seed resources is particularly important.

"A species affects a country's economy, and a gene is related to a country's prosperity." In 2004, at the suggestion of the late Professor Wu Zhengyi, a well-known botanist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the construction of the Southwest China Wildlife Germplasm Resource Bank began and began to operate in 2007. The growth of the germplasm bank from scratch to the largest scale in Asia today is one of the report cards handed over by China in the protection of biodiversity.

The Global Times reporter saw these colorful, different shapes, different sizes, plant seeds preserved in thousands of acrylic rods at the scene, like a painting that allows people to glimpse the mystery of plants. But the on-site staff told the Global Times reporter that these are only for display purposes, and the real seeds are "hibernating" in the cold storage of minus 20 degrees Celsius, and non-staff are usually not allowed to enter.

At room temperature, ordinary seeds can generally only be stored for one to two years, in order to extend the life of seeds, researchers can use low temperature, drying and other ways to preserve them for a long time. Seeds collected in the wild need to go through strict quality control procedures of more than 70 passes, such as cleaning, drying, weighing and counting, before they can enter the cold storage for "hibernation".

In the seed cleaning room, the Global Times reporter saw that the cleaners were removing impurities, insect moths, and stunted seeds through tools such as separators and screens of different calibers. Seeds that meet the criteria will be treated at low temperatures and dried to enter the "dormancy period" to meet the conditions for entering the seed bank. At a constant temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius, most seeds can survive for decades or even thousands of years. Some seeds are also particularly "sleepy", for example, cotton seeds can "sleep" for tens of thousands of years, and there is still a certain degree of activity. If necessary, researchers can reawaken these "sleeping" seeds. "To ensure that seeds are viable, every 5 or 10 years, a seed viability test is carried out," said Qin Shaofa, head of the Germplasm Preservation Center.

However, not all seeds can enjoy such a high-level "sleep" service, and the "threshold" for seed bank access is very high. "Rare and endangered species, endemic species and plant seeds with important economic, ecological and scientific research value will be given priority preservation," Qin Shaofa told the Global Times. According to this standard, some national first- and second-class rare and endangered plants are given priority to obtain "Noah's Ark" ferry tickets, such as Himalayan yew trees, "Maitreya moss" that has disappeared for hundreds of years, and Qiaojia five-needle pine, which has only a few dozen trees left in the wild.

In order to accurately send out "ferry tickets", germplasm collection personnel spend more than 100 days a year in the wild, leaving their footprints everywhere from the desert Gobi to the tropical rainforest, from the roof of the world to the Three Rivers Plain. Not only did they have to wade through the mountains to find the target plants, but they also had to calculate the time to collect seed samples that met the requirements. According to the standard, a complete seed sample requires at least 2500 grains, and about 10,000 grains is the best. At the same time, in order not to destroy the origin population situation, the amount of seed collection cannot exceed 20% of the origin seed.

Not long ago, experts from the germplasm bank successfully collected plant seeds such as Meru leaf mustard and rat koji snow rabbit at about 6200 meters of Mount Everest, refreshing the highest altitude record of plant seed collection in China.

Because of extreme cold, lack of oxygen and other factors, the exposed flowing rock beach at the high altitude of Mount Everest has always been considered a forbidden area for life. Previously, the highest altitude seeds preserved in the germplasm bank were collected from the alpine desert shrubland of 5559 meters in the Ali region of Tibet, and the collection of germplasm resources at an altitude of about 6200 meters is of great significance for the protection of biodiversity, the response to climate change and the strengthening of biosecurity construction. When collecting seeds, in order to ensure genetic diversity, researchers also collect the same plant in different growth sites, which makes the collection work extremely difficult.

"But our collectors are full of responsibility and mission for this work, and they know that the discovery, collection and preservation of these seeds is not only the need to protect the natural environment on which human beings live, but also the need for the future development of human beings, and it is an important basic work to protect biodiversity," Cai Jie said.