Thematic fields

The scientific program will be specified in the second circular but it aims at addressing the following (but not comprehensive) list of issues related to plant, fungi and habitat knowledge and conservation.

1. Knowing our natural heritage: What has been done and what remains to do?

• • Are all branches of the tree of Life fairly studied?
  • Towards a comprehensive list of known plants, fungi and habitats with an assessment of their conservation status from global to local levels.

2. Online European flora atlas projects, online vegetation databases towards monitoring.

• • How is Europe contributing to World Flora Online project?
  • Are data widely available in electronic forms and included in accessible databases?

3. Improving the monitoring of species and habitat composition and their temporal change:

• • Developing new resources and tools (drone, barcoding, artificial intelligence…).
  • Going from presence-absence to abundances, going from taxonomical units to evolutionary units.
  • Using phylogenetic diversity in the selection of conservation areas.

4. Role of Herbaria and Fungaria.

• • Are Herbaria and Fungaria adequate resources and sufficiently protected?
  • A key-role to understand global changes.
  • A source of material for extinct species.
  • Providing a resource for understanding current and past distributions and diversity.

 1. Setting and implementing European priorities in plant conservation, species recovery and ecological restoration.

2. Conservation in the field:

• • Inter-situ and quasi in situ: feedbacks from concrete trials.
  • Case studies of successful conservation of plant species.
  • Feedbacks from ecological engineering: towards guidelines to share time-tested experiences, including the case of invasive alien species

3. Proposal of regional responses to complete the existing areas of interest (Important Plant Areas, Emerald network, N2000…). Experimental and explicit approaches, at European level, to the selection of priority areas for conservation.

4. Reshaping role and targets of seedbanking:

• • Implementation for the conservation at the habitat level.
  • Favouring cost- and energy-efficient facilities.
  • Genetic diversity assessment of seed-banked species.

5. Role of Botanic Gardens and ex situ facilities in the conservation of wild species.

6. Conservation to face climate change: new paradigms:

• • Assisted gene flow and assisted migration.
  • Emphasizing the ecological functionalities of the ecosystem approach in conservation.
  • Role and limits of the evolutionary rescue concept.

7. Changes in agricultural practices and their impact on wild plant species (permaculture, role of arable weeds and segetal species, stakes of the upcoming CAP…).

8. Benefits and issues of landscape-scale initiatives and rewilding projects on plant conservation, especially for populations of threatened species.

9. Greening the urban and peri-urban environment around the cities: ecosystems services, green roofs, towards more diverse green areas and parks, farming systems…

10. Evaluation of effectiveness of current European instruments in plant conservation (HD, RN2000…)

11. Assessing, renewing and promoting international Agendas:

• • European roles in supporting worldwide plant conservation.
  • Nagoya protocol and implementation.
  • Updating the European Plant Conservation Strategy for the period 2021 to 2030, within a vision for European plants up to 2050.
  • Linking national, regional and global initiatives.

1. Promoting citizen science, involving amateur botanists, mycologists and citizen scientists already participating in non-plant science. Open biomaps and databases.

2. New opportunities for plant conservation and ecological awareness in urban Europe.

3. Think globally, act locally: defining role and developing tools for citizen involvement.

4. Plants and food security.

5. Sharing, networking, reconciling ecology: being stronger together than apart.

6. Defining more pragmatic goals for upcoming Agendas: working to define global targets scalable at local levels.

7. Avoid-reduce-compensate: place and role of the French mitigation doctrine in companies’ business plans.

8. Counteracting plant blindness: local and global plant knowledge in Science and environmental education; the evolution of the teaching of plants in teaching curricula: facts and limits.

9. Using social media to reach new and bigger audiences for plants conservation.