Institute of Biodiversity Conservation

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrates its first anniversary on 26 February. More than 320,000 seed species from all over the world are now safely stored in the Norwegian permafrost. To mark the anniversary, international researchers and geneticists are gathering on Svalbard for the seminar “Frozen Seeds in a Frozen Mountain – Feeding a Warming World”.

Using data collected from nearly 250,000 trees in the world’s tropical forests over the past 40 years, their study found that tropical forests across the world remove 4.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Not all kinds of habitats are vulnerable to such invasions. Some are more likely to have a higher number of invasive species than others. Predicting which environments are more prone to invasive species would help devise mechanisms to take protective steps. Such a predictive map of invasives versus habitats has been created for Europe by researchers from Spain, the UK and the Czech Republic.

The pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said Saturday.

[ March 18, 2009; ] Theme: Biodiversity and Sustainable Development
Topics and presenters:
1. Biodiversity (Definition, Conservation, Sustainable Use, Access and Benefit Sharing): Dr. Girma Balcha

2. Forest Biodiversity: Dr. Gemedo Dalle

3. Horticultural Biodiversity: Dr. Terefe Belihu

4. Forage and Pasture Biodiversity: Mrs. Feaven Workeye

5. Crop Biodiversity: Mr. Adugna Abdi

6. Microbial Biodiversity: Dr. Genene Tefera

7. Animal Biodiversity: Dr. Solomon Abegaz and Mr. [...]

Farmers and plant breeders around the globe are planting thousands of endangered seeds as part of an effort to save 100,000 varieties of food crops from extinction.