Arqus Verde webinar series – last session: Reintroduction of three endangered plant species in Western Lithuania
Format: Online
Open to: General public
On 9 June at 10:00 CEST – 11:00 EEST, the fifth and last session of the Arqus Verde webinar series will take place, featuring Gitana Štukėnienė from Vilnius University. The session will focus on the reintroduction of endangered plants.
Vilnius University Botanical Garden in collaboration with a non-governmental organization The Lithuanian Fund for Nature (LFN) has been carrying out an experimental project of rebuilding a few small habitats on the Baltic Sea shore of three endangered species: Tripolium pannonicum, Glaux maritima, Juncus gerardii. All those species are determined in Lithuania as endangered on the verge of extinction.
The programme of rebuilding habitats of the species contains a few steps of implementation: collecting material in wild, propagation, growing new plants in ex situ conditions (with a small part of propagation direct in situ), bringing propagated material back to nature, enlarging small native habitats in measures and in numbers of plants, and creating habitats more dense, covered with new units of plants.
The staff of the Botanical Garden was working on collecting the material (living plants and seeds) in the wild and propagation of new plants, whereas their partner LFN was responsible for management of endangered plants and their habitats in situ. As a result, they have gained experience incollecting material in wild conditions, propagating and growing these plants ex situ.
The goal of the project “Reintroduction of endangered plant species” is to reintroduce endangered plant species, artificially propagated and sourced from donor populations, into habitats located in Kopgalis and Kliosiai. They already germinated seeds in two ways: in Petri dishes and in the specially prepared soil mixture. The selected seeds were disinfected with three different chemicals (of various concentrations) and 134,000 plants were planted.
Contact arqus-verde@arqus-alliance.eu for any further information.