History of the Egyptian Desert Gene Bank (EDGB)
摘要
Egyptian Deserts Gene Bank (EDGB) in the North Sinai Research Station at Desert Research Center (DRC) is one of the most valuable resources for germplasm conservation and plant information. In the EDGB and the Herbarium Archive repositories are annotated collections of publicly and researcher-available various rare wild desert plants that represent different plant families, such as the Labiatae, Liguminosae, Comositae, Cruciferae, Gramineae, and Solanaceae. The EDGB site is one major place for newly discovered wild desert plants to be submitted and deposited in the area surrounding the bank, where users can get information and documented data about the location of desert plants and their environmental conditions using the Global Positioning System (GPS) and available data at EDGB database. EDGB is divided into four main parts: the main part is a storage room area (Ex-situ-conservation-area) and the other parts are the Herbarium of EGDB, EDGB Labs, and EGDB Field Gene Bank. The research teams in these previous sections are working and doing several processes. The process involves searching for and gathering valuable germplasm, especially those that are in danger of going extinct. It also involves surveying the valuable germplasm that is available for the coastal and Sinai areas, storing essential and endangered plant species for short, medium, and long periods of time, and multiplying, rejuvenating, characterizing, and evaluating the germplasm that has been collected. Finally, it involves computerizing data related to all germplasm activities and distributing the germplasm to all users while keeping in mind the preservation and restoration of the region’s plant biodiversity and ecosystems.