Plants

What is a Plant?
Plants are full of surprises. When we ask ourselves questions such as "What is a
plant?" and "How do adult plants make new plants?" we discover that the world
of plants is exciting and often mysterious.
Plants include magnificent trees and colourful flowers, as well as many strange
mosses and ferns.
Plants can be made up of billions of cells working together, to form large trees.
On the other hand, they may be made up of just a few tiny cells, invisible to the
human eye.
While humans need to eat to get energy, most plants can produce their own food
through a process known as photosynthesis, through which plants capture
energy from the sun, and convert it into carbohydrate for growth.
Some carnivorous plants capture and digest insects to get extra energy. One
such insect-eating plant is Bladderwort. Other plants are parasites, stealing
nutrients from other living things.
Although millions of different types of these living things are grouped together
under the name "Plants", many of them are worlds apart in terms of how they
look, feed and reproduce.

Where do Plants Live?

We most often see plants growing in soil on land, from lowlands to high
mountain-tops. However, millions of plants grow underneath and above water,
such as Water Lilies and Duckweed.
Plants can be found in ponds, on lakes and in rivers (for example Water Crowfoot)
or even in the tiniest puddles. Many algae live in the sea as well as in fresh water.
Some plants, grow on other plants, like the harmless ephiphytic Orchids. Others
cause harm to the plants on which they grow, like the parasitic Broomrapes,
which stick their roots right into other plants to steal nutrients.

Are Plants Important?

Yes. Life on Earth depends on plants. Plants are an essential food source for
many living things, including of course, us humans.
Plants such as wheat, vegetables and fruit provide food for humans, and other
living things.
Plants are at the bottom of food chains. They capture energy from the sun, and
pass it up through living things, as herbivores eat plants, then carnivores eat
herbivores.
Plants produce the oxygen we need to breathe, and they use up carbon dioxide,
an important job for a healthy atmosphere.
Fun Fact: Fungi, such as mushrooms and toadstools, are not plants. None of
them can produce their own food (through photosynthesis) as most plants can.
Instead, fungi take their food from other sources, absorbing it from the
surrounding soil and plants.
Because they are so weird and wonderful, and because they have similarities to
plants, we will explore fungi in the biodiversity pages here. To explore fungi click
on the toadstool.

Plants
About 7,000 species of plants have been cultivated for consumption in
human history. The great diversity of varieties resulting from human and
ecosystem interaction guaranteed food for the survival and development of
human populations throughout the world in spite of pests, diseases, climate
fluctuations, droughts and other unexpected environmental events.
Presently, only about 30 crops provide 95% of human food energy needs,
four of which (rice, wheat, maize and potato) are responsible for more than
60% of our energy intake. Due to the dependency on this relatively small
number of crops for global food security, it will be crucial to maintain a high
genetic diversity within these crops to deal with increasing environmental
stress and to provide farmers and researchers with opportunities to breed
for crops that can be cultivated under unfavorable conditions, such as
drought, salinity, flooding, poor soils and extreme temperatures.
Plant genetic resources are the basis of food security and consist of diversity
of seeds and planting material of traditional varieties and modern cultivars,
crop wild relatives and other wild plant species. These resources are used as
food, feed for domesticated animals, fibre, clothing, shelter and energy. The
conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA is necessary to ensure crop

production and meet growing environmental challenges and climate change.

The loss of these resources or a lack of adequate linkages between
conservation and their use poses a severe threat to the worlds food security
in the long term.The potential of plant genetic resources for food security,
sustainable livelihoods, adequate nutrition and adaptation to climate change
is enormous, if managed in a sustainable manner.
FAO is dedicated to improve knowledge and conservation of plant genetic
resources to ensure the sustainable provision of food in the long term, and
contributing to make full use of the genetic resources available, including
wild relatives of main crops currently used.

What is biodiversity?

Biodiversity means variety of life forms. Regions home to many different

species are high in biodiversity. Variety within populations of a single species
can also be considered a contribution to biodiversity. Ecosystems with high
biodiversity are characterised by complex interactions between different
species, which can help the ecosystem remain intact and healthy in the face
of disturbance and environmental change. For this reason, looking at
biodiversity is a good parameter for assessing the overall health of an
ecosystem.
Wild plants on the farm

Producing crops, by its very nature, means getting rid of

wild plants on the farm. There are many management
strategies used by farmers to reduce the growth of weedy
wild plants. If other plants are permitted to grow alongside
crops, the crops will have to compete for valuable resources
such as light, water, and nutrients. This would have huge
negative effects on crop productivity. A certain presence of
wild plants on the field, however, can actually be helpful.
Wild plants make a more attractive environment for certain
animals that are known to deter pests. Well thought-out
agricultural practices leave a place for wild plants and still
provide crops with good growing conditions.
Agriculture using genetically modified crops must respect this balance.
Environmental safety research is conducted to see if traits of genetically
modified plants could have a negative impact on biodiversity. Theoretically,
there a few ways in which biodiversity could be compromised:
Out-crossing: If GM plants pass their new traits on to wild relatives,
those relatives could be changed in a way that could make them play a
different ecological role, potentially enabling them to out-compete other
species.
Agricultural practices: Herbicide tolerant GM plants are examined to
see how the associated weed management strategies affect the number of

wild plants found in fields. Many such studies have been carried out in Great
Britain and in Germany. On a case-by-case basis, researchers must
determine if specific GM cropping systems lessen or improve biodiversity
with relation to conventional crops and see if any differences are
of significance.
New traits conferred by genetic engineering could offer advantages
that could lead to the widespread use of only a few crop varieties in other
words, a loss of cultivar biodiversity. Reducing the diversity of cultivars
found in agriculture could lead to problems such as higher susceptibility to
widespread outbreaks of plant diseases and pests.
In general, seed companies rarely release only a single cultivar with a new
genetically engineered trait; rather, they will introduce the same trait by
breeding to many different cultivars. Therefore, using genetically engineered
crops doesnt necessarily mean reducing the diversity of cultivars. It is,
nonetheless, a good idea to keep a close eye on this in the long term.
BIODIVERSITY & MEDICINAL PLANTS

The focus of this theme in 2007 has been on identifying and developing
components of a large, Africa-wide project on medicinal plants, covering
aspects of their occurrence, indigenous knowledge, taxonomy, active
ingredients, analytical organic chemistry and laboratory analysis, seed
science, harvesting in the wild, cultivation, livelihoods of rural communities,
the production and use of medicinal plant products, quality control of plant
products, marketing and export, and their conservation c.q. the conservation
of their habitats.
The Dreyer Foundation (based in Mnchen, Germany) is a partner of UNUINRA in the GLOWA project and has expressed an interest in developing c.q.
funding activities in the field of medicinal plants in Ghana and Burkina Faso.
The activity in Ghana would relate to the strengthening of the capacity of the
Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine (CSRPM) in Mampong, in
particular their analytical and IT-service infrastructure. The activity in Burkina
Faso relates to the reforestation of the Dano Hills adjacent to the Scientific
Research Station of the Dreyer Foundation in Dano, Burkina Faso.
Mr Gisbert Dreyer and Ms Regina Schuh, the Chief Executives of the Dreyer
Foundation, visited UNU-INRA to discuss collaboration in the field of
reforestation and medicinal plants between the Dreyer Foundation, UNUINRA, the University of Ghana, and the CSRPM in Mampong. UNU-INRA is

expected to play a coordinating role in this collaborative project, which will

initially be funded by the Dreyer Foundation. If successful, this project could
possibly be linked to the research that has been done, or proposed by the
Operating Units in Namibia and Cameroon:
(1) Development of technologies for the domestication, cultivation and value
addition of the Devil's Claw (Harpagophytum procumbens) for raising income
and sustainable development of rural communities in Namibia (OU-Namibia)
(2) Establishment of a Namibian traditional herbal medicinal knowledge
management system of desert plants for screening purposes (OU-Namibia)
Water Hyacinth or terror of Bengal once introduced in that region wiped out
almost all the lotus from ponds by its excessive reproduction. It was also a
major cause of drying of several fresh water ponds. If the ecological balance
is disturbed for a water body sooner or later it will dry up. Like the reed
swamp stage of Ghana bird century or Kevladeo bird sanctuary of Bharatpur.
Once the plant diversity was disturbed by introducing excessive grazing, and
introducing Prosopis juliflora in the area the water ponds started drying up.
Plants have to live in harmony and in a perfect balance and once this
balance is disturbed the biodiversity is gone. Preserve the balance and
preserve the biodiversity of plants for our own survival.