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Sharpening Our Tools

In addition to providing our animals SCIENCE

with the highest quality of care and our

guests with engaging experiences that

inspire conservation action, the Chicago Zoological

Society is committed to preserving wildlife—and

nature—worldwide.

The Species Conservation Toolkit Initiative (or

SCTI), an initiative started by the Society and partner

facilitators, has been internationally used to guide

population management for animals in the wild and

under professional care. Now, it is being used in efforts

to conserve declining plant species: the SCTI team has

been collaborating with scientists from various botanic

gardens and arboretums to learn how zoo population

management tools might be applied to conserve rare

plant species.

As a first test, the team curated data for

an endangered Hawaiian plant, Brighamia

insignis, and used SCTI’s PMx software to

make management recommendations to help Brighamia insignis (above), more commonly known as cabbage on a stick, is an endangered Hawaiian plant.
Yellow flowers (below) bloom September through November.
preserve this plant’s genetic diversity. Results showed

that several genetically valuable plants were held

outside the main collection at the National Tropical

Botanical Garden.

Now that these individuals have been identified,

pollen can be transferred and crosses performed to

preserve their genes in the next generation. While

working with the Brighamia data, the SCTI team also

learned how to make PMx better. Plants are frequently

hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and

female reproductive organs, and their demography is

based on life stages, rather than age classes. The PMx

software was modified to allow for hermaphroditic

mating systems and the team is in the early stages of

applying for a grant to create a new version of PMx that

will accommodate stage-based demography. These

capabilities are not only helpful for plants but will also

make PMx a better tool for group-living animals like

corals and fishes, too.

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum
and Library Services Grant #MG-30-16-0085-16.

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