Biotechnology strategy of plant biodiversity conservation in botanical gardens of Russia

According to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (2011-2020) halting the continuing loss of plant diversity is possible by maintaining in situ, ex situ and in vitro collections. Botanical gardens are world centers of plant biodiversity conservation. Today in the Russian Federation there are nearly 100 botanical gardens and dendroparks and all plant collections are registered online at Project Office for Bio-Resource Collection Management. The use of biotechnological approaches in the micropropagation and conservation of valuable horticultural plants, rare and endangered species, and the establishment of genebanks in vitro has become increasingly important for the preservation of the plant genepool. The main factors that affect the creation of an in vitro genеbank of virus-free plants (ornamental, essential-oil, fruit crops and wild plant species) are presented. The five largest in vitro plant collections in Russia are: FSBIS Main Botanical Garden of the RAS (Moscow); Volgograd Regional Botanical Garden (Volgograd); FSFIS “Nikita Botanical Gardens - National Scientific Center of the RAS” (Yalta); Botanical Garden of Belgorod State University (Belgorod); and the Central Siberian Botanical Garden of the Siberian Branch of the RAS (Novosibirsk). The optimum temperature during standard in vitro culture of the plants is 22-24°C, while the low positive temperatures for long-term preservation under slow growth of explants is specific for each plant species and cultivar. We found that storage at 4-8°C preserved the viability of different types of explants of species, cultivars and forms, while demonstrating that some morpho-anatomical and physiological changes occur. Importantly, there is a beneficial effect of long-term in vitro preservation on the regeneration of adventitious shoots and rhizogenesis after moving explants to standard cultivation conditions. To reaffirm the importance of in vitro preservation and regeneration, genome analysis of cultured plants is necessary.