Preserving biodiversity at AU
It’s difficult to say with any degree of certainty how many different species of life exist on earth. More than a million have been identified and described, but some estimates range as high as 10 million … and a small sample of those species are on display at the T.S. Bakshi Herbarium on the Athabasca University (AU) campus in Athabasca.
Preserving that biological diversity is a priority for the United Nations General Assembly, which is why the intergovernmental organization recognizes May 22 as the International Day for Biological Diversity.
Unfortunately, biological diversity is being lost on Earth at a significant rate. There are six major extinction events recorded in Earth’s history, including the Holocene extinction (also called the Anthropocene extinction), which many scientists argue is currently taking place and is attributed to human activity.
The efforts of biologists the world over to preserve plant species in herbaria, including the T.S. Bakshi Herbarium, reflect an effort to preserve what currently exists in order to study changes to different organisms and also, in some cases, to preserve these species against extinction.
T.S. Bakshi Herbarium
The Athabasca University herbarium was created in 1985 by Dr. Trilochan Singh Bakshi.
Dr. Roland Treu is the herbarium curator, a position he took on after he started working as a biology professor with AU in 2008. He said shortly thereafter the AU Library undertook a project to digitize the collection and make it available online.
And with the completion of the new Academic and Research Centre (ARC) building on the Athabasca campus, the collection was moved from an annex to a proper space to display it and allow for some growth.
The herbarium was renamed the T.S. Bakshi Herbarium in 2009 to honour its founder and was formally recognized in 2014 and included in the INDEX HERBARIORUM administered by the New York Botanical Garden as one of about 3,000 official herbaria worldwide.
As of 2019, the collection holds 3,200 specimens of plants and 900 specimens of fungi, representing more than 800 species of plant and 600 species of fungi—most of which can be found in Alberta.
“We do have things from other provinces, and even from other countries. And we have some very old stuff, as well,” Treu said. “We have a few treasures, and we have displayed some of them now in the library, going back to the late 1800s.”
Many of the older specimens weren’t preserved according to proper standards, but they’re kept regardless because of their historical value.
Treu said there’s immense scientific value in this kind of collection. One possible application is being able to do an evolutionary study comparing a specimen taken a century ago and comparing the DNA with a contemporary specimen.
“There are even cases where seeds from herbaria have been successfully germinated, so it’s almost like the resurrection of something that hasn’t been seen in a long time,” he said.
“We do have things from other provinces, and even from other countries. And we have some very old stuff, as well,” Treu said. “We have a few treasures, and we have displayed some of them now in the library, going back to the late 1800s.”
Many of the older specimens weren’t preserved according to proper standards, but they’re kept regardless because of their historical value.
Treu said there’s immense scientific value in this kind of collection. One possible application is being able to do an evolutionary study comparing a specimen taken a century ago and comparing the DNA with a contemporary specimen.
“There are even cases where seeds from herbaria have been successfully germinated, so it’s almost like the resurrection of something that hasn’t been seen in a long time,” he said.
Why it’s important
Treu identified three main reasons why preservation of biodiversity is important: the ethical argument, the evolutionary argument, and the economic argument.
The ethical argument is that plants have value in and of themselves.
“We are all related to plants; we have common evolutionary roots-and so we’re all part of the same family,” he said.
The evolutionary argument is that the more species there are, the more opportunities there are for life to adapt in the face of unforeseen catastrophes or crises.
The third argument, which Treu says is the one most likely to convince people of the significance of this issue, is the economic argument. Having biodiversity is crucial, as in the context of medicinal plants and agricultural diversity.
Roughly 40 per cent of prescription medication is plant-based, while billions of people worldwide eat a predominantly plant-based diet. Strains of plants and animals on which humans have depended for medicine or food have disappeared in the past, and there is always a risk of that in the future as well.
“The number one crop we have worldwide is wheat. If that were knocked out—and we do incidentally have a fungus to wheat that has caused catastrophe—that has at times killed whole populations of people,” he said.
Different pests will evolve to attack certain species of crops, and crop researchers are consistently working on crossing species, hybridizing, and otherwise trying to keep ahead of the pests.
“The goal is to create resistant strains against our most common pests, and it’s basically a running target. Once you have something, the pests evolve again and become virulent again,” Treu said. “It has been going on for many centuries, but that’s why you need biodiversity.”
While the specimens on AU’s collection aren’t necessarily food-bearing crops, cataloguing and preserving them as part of an international collection of herbaria is nonetheless an important way to preserve biodiversity.
Treu said one of the most significant steps individuals can take to try to mitigate the loss of biological diversity is to support the preservation of habitat. He said there are many botanists who are convinced, for example, that there are undiscovered species in northern Alberta,
“Anything that prevents habitat loss will help, but it goes against the grain of both agriculture and industry, of course, because that’s where things are lost.”
