Trinity College Botanic Garden long-term monitoring program

Botanic gardens hold large, documented, and accessible collections of
living plants. These represent unique subsets of taxa from different
biogeographical regions growing under common environmental conditions,
connecting people to global plant research and conservation efforts while
offering a place beneficial for human health and wellbeing. Despite
Botanic Gardens being an ideal setting for climate change research, their
potential for comparative, long-term studies and outreach in the field is
still underutilised. As part of its ten-year strategy, Trinity College
Botanic Garden (TCBG) aims to tap this potential and establish a programme
for long-term (>30 years) monitoring of key physiological
performances in its living woody plant collection. The programme will also
assess particulate pollution (PM10 and PM2.5) interception by the same
trees, pairing climate change and urban green research. Importantly, the
project will include the design of a transferable protocol, produce
vouchered herbarium specimens as a future historical archive and as a
pedagogical tool, and support the garden outreach strategy, so as to
nurture its link with both Trinity College Dublin and local communities,
ensuring the garden’s legacy into the future.