Development of a Micropropagation Protocol for the Ex Situ Conservation of Nuttall's Scrub Oak ().

Worldwide, oak species are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, pathogens, and changing fire regimes. Ex situ conservation through tissue culture may protect the remaining genetic diversity of , or the coastal sage scrub oak, from further loss. We designed three basal salt formulations based on the mineral composition of shoot tips and first leaves from mature and explored carbohydrate source, stress-mitigating compounds, and plant growth regulator concentrations to develop a method of cultivating many culture lines in vitro.

Harnessing the power of botanical gardens: Evaluating the costs and resources needed for exceptional plant conservation.

Premise: The effective ex situ conservation of exceptional plants, whether in living collections or cryo-collections, requires more resources than the conservation of other species. Because of their expertise with rare plants, botanical gardens are well positioned to lead this effort, but a well-developed strategy requires a clear understanding of the resources needed.

Methods: Grant funding was obtained from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to support a three-year project on cryobanking, and to provide smaller grants to 10 other botanical gardens for one-year projects on either (1) seed behavior studies or (2) the development of protocols for in vitro propagation or cryopreservation.

Rare earth-doped glass microbarcodes.

The development of ultraminiaturized identification tags has applications in fields ranging from advanced biotechnology to security. This paper describes micrometer-sized glass barcodes containing a pattern of different fluorescent materials that are easily identified by using a UV lamp and an optical microscope. A model DNA hybridization assay using these "microbarcodes" is described.