COSMOS MAGAZINE
Emma Dalziell in the Kings Park Seed Bank. Credit: Eugenie Au (DBCA)
New research from Perth's Kings Park Seed Bank is changing what we know about how long seeds can survive in storage — and why that matters more than ever.
Wattle (Acacia) seed pods. Credit: Getty
As climate change, habitat loss, and disease continue to threaten plant life, seed banks act like biological time capsules, preserving thousands of species that might otherwise disappear.
Seeds are living organisms, and they’re like human beings or any other animals – they age and die in storage.
Emma Dalziell, Seed biologist University of Western Australia.
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Old seed collections in the Kings Park Seed Bank. Credit: Eugenie Au (DBCA)
Building and maintaining a seed bank is a lot of hands-on work. Scientists collect seeds from the field, dry them, and store them in temperatures of around -18°C, which slows down the seeds’ metabolic processes.
But just how long a seed can last in storage is a tricky question.
Not all seeds are created equal.
Tough species like eucalypts or acacias might live 100s or even 1000s of years in storage, but the majority of species are expected to live for 10s of years, and some species much less.
This means there’s a limited time that scientists can take the seeds out of the bank and use them for research or conservation.
Old seed collections in the Kings Park Seed Bank. Credit: Eugenie Au (DBCA)
Researchers first started collecting and storing seeds at Kings Park in the 1960s – not in a freezer, but in an old shed at the back of the nursery, which could heat up to more than 40°C (104 °F) in summer.
Some seeds can be x-rayed to determine viability. Credit: Eugenie Au (DBCA)
Studying the viability of seed collections, researchers uncovered that some seeds defied expectations, surviving decades in poor conditions, while others perish quickly despite careful handling in ideal conditions, revealing how much we still don’t understand about seed biology.
Sharalene Balasupramaniyam setting up experiments at the Kings Park Seed Bank. Credit: Eugenie Au (DBCA)
These findings are crucial, because knowing a seed's 'use-by date' and how long it stays viable, helps scientists make better decisions about when and how to use them for restoring ecosystems, saving endangered species, and protecting our food future.
Seed germination in a petri dish, from seeds stored in the bank. Credit: Eugenie Au (DBCA)
The Kings Park Seed Bank currently contains 14,000 individual collections from more than 4000 species, with more species collected and stored every year as plants become more and more threatened.
But that entire collection is all aging and dying at different rates, and somehow we’re supposed to be able to manage that.
Emma Dalziell, Seed biologist University of Western Australia.
We’ve got to make sure that we’re looking after those seeds that have got short life spans, and making sure that the collection doesn’t go to waste and just die on us without us understanding it.
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