Abstract Gene conservation programs help safeguard species and tangibly benefit ecological restoration, agriculture, forestry, and horticulture. Here we describe a new method for deciding which and how many populations and individuals to conserve ex situ, and we demonstrate the method by evaluating collections of European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) for an ongoing seed-banking project, the UK National Tree Seed Project (NTSP). The method uses simulations and geographic distribution data, and does not require (but can utilize) genetic data. We estimate that NTSP collections have captured >90% of all alleles and of locally common alleles. We identified optimal sampling solutions at large and small spatial scales, and for northern isolated vs. southern core populations. We also quantified genetic “points of diminishing returns” with a more precise method than previous studies. This analysis revealed that (for European ash, for a goal of capturing one copy of each allele) an optimal “stopping point” is approximately 35 populations, 10 to 30 trees per population, and 30 seeds per tree. Overall, we conclude that the NTSP protocol of random sampling of at least 15 trees per population from two populations per seed zone is effective. We demonstrated how collectors can adjust the number of populations, individuals and seeds sampled using the concept of “genetic equivalence”, allowing projects to accommodate practical or ecological constraints. Lastly we showed that for a conservation goal of 50 allele copies rather than one copy, a much larger sampling effort is needed (>150 populations). This new approach can be tailored to any species. It is applicable to any seed collection seeking to capture genetic diversity, as well as in situ gene conservation approaches. We emphasize that the ability to quantitatively estimate the outcome of gene conservation activities can help design, justify, or evaluate future programs.

中文翻译：

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实施有效保护遗传多样性的新方法，以英国的白蜡（Fraxinus excelsior）为例

摘要 基因保护计划有助于保护物种，并切实有益于生态恢复、农业、林业和园艺。在这里，我们描述了一种新方法，用于决定移地保护哪些种群和个体以及有多少种群和个体，并且我们通过评估欧洲白蜡（Fraxinus excelsior）为正在进行的种子库项目英国国家树木种子项目的收集来展示该方法（ NTSP）。该方法使用模拟和地理分布数据，不需要（但可以利用）遗传数据。我们估计 NTSP 集合已捕获 >90% 的所有等位基因和本地常见等位基因。我们确定了大空间和小空间尺度的最佳采样解决方案，以及北部孤立与南部核心种群的最佳采样解决方案。我们还用比以前的研究更精确的方法量化了遗传“收益递减点”。该分析表明（对于欧洲灰烬，为了捕获每个等位基因的一个副本）最佳“停止点”是大约 35 个种群，每个种群 10 到 30 棵树，每棵树 30 粒种子。总体而言，我们得出的结论是，从每个种子区的两个种群中随机抽样每个种群至少 15 棵树的 NTSP 协议是有效的。我们展示了收集者如何使用“遗传等效性”的概念来调整采样的种群、个体和种子的数量，从而使项目能够适应实际或生态的限制。最后，我们表明，对于 50 个等位基因拷贝而不是一个拷贝的保护目标，需要更大的采样工作（> 150 个种群）。这种新方法可以适用于任何物种。它适用于任何寻求捕获遗传多样性的种子收集，以及原位基因保护方法。我们强调定量估计基因保护活动结果的能力可以帮助设计、证明或评估未来的计划。