FIELD STUDIES AND CONSERVATION RESEARCH

FIELD STUDIES AND
CONSERVATION RESEARCH

Our botanist Dr Ethan Freid regularly travels to other islands to do seed collections. In addition to collections while in the field, plant conservation assessments are conducted for species Red Listing through the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

Collections

While Eleuthera has a lot of native species there are many plants that only occur on other islands. To bring these into the living collections for the Preserve, expeditions are planned to track down these species and collect fruits or cones if possible. The Preserves works to do seed collection of species rather than cuttings to have the broadest possible genetic diversity within our collections.

Red Listing

To properly assess the conservation status of a species status, a variety of data is needed. Once this data is collected, the assessment can begin to take place. The data we collect for each species include:

  • How large the population is in terms of the physical area it is located in (Area Of Occurrence or AOO)

  • How far widespread the species is (Extent Of Occurrence or EOO).

  • How many reproductive individuals are there in the population.

  • Threats to the species (invasive species, development, etc)

  • Habitat and ecology

  • What current conservation efforts are being conducted (parks created, ex-situ efforts, education and outreach, etc)

  • What uses or trades are occurring

  • Types of ecosystem services provided by the species

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