2010). The Global Strategy

for Plant Conservation (GSPC; Secretariat of the CBD 2002) was adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2002 as a policy response to the dire situation of plant life, and an updated version of the strategy up to 2020 was recently approved at the Conference of Parties to the CBD in Nagoya (Convention of Biological Diversity 2010). Botanic gardens of the world, largely through their advocate Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), were pivotal in the writing and promotion of the GSPC, and have continued in this selleck products role in the implementation, follow-up, and further development of the strategy (Secretariat of the CBD 2009). The role of botanic gardens in the creation selleck chemical and mainstreaming of the GSPC has been a manifestation of the fact that these time-honoured institutions have fully adopted a fourth main task—conservation—alongside their traditional responsibilities in research, teaching, and public education in the field of botany. However, the GSPC puts due emphasis also on these traditional tasks through the recognition that successful conservation must be based on a solid knowledge base and that the understanding of the value of plant diversity must also be disseminated to the widest

possible audience in order to make a difference (e.g. Targets 1, 14, and 15; Secretariat of the CBD 2002). Botanic gardens thus have a mandate as well as an obligation to continuously pursue their goal to document and understand the vegetal world as well as to teach students at different levels and educate the public about what is being learnt during this endeavour. An acute challenge, nevertheless, is to speed up and re-direct all these activities as a response to the new demands posed by climate change. This Special Issue of Biodiversity and Conservation provides

an overview of the ways in which botanic gardens are taking on the challenge. It comprises 17 contributions (one of which, Krigas et al. 2010, was previously published) during that form the core of the proceedings of the Fifth European Botanic Gardens Selleckchem SN-38 Congress, EuroGardV—Botanic Gardens in the Age of Climate Change, which was organised by the European Consortium of Botanic Gardens, BGCI, and the Helsinki University Botanic Garden (HUBG), and took place in Helsinki in June 2009. A total of 127 papers were presented at the congress, including nine keynote lectures, and seven workshops were arranged (Lehvävirta et al. 2009). A supplementary proceedings is expected to be published in HUBGs series Ulmus later this year. Rapid global change not only emphasises the need for conservation research and actions but also puts demands on the basic functions of botanic gardens, in particular with regards to resource use.