Geographical and inter-annual patterns of seed viability in the threatened cold desert perennial Ivesia webberi A. Gray, and the prospect of non-destructive seed testing methods

Seed banking is an ex situ conservation method for preserving the genetic diversity of threatened plant species, but it may be unsuitable for the estimated one-third of threatened plant species that have recalcitrant storage behavior, many of which produce a small number of viable seeds. Therefore, effective seed banking require an understanding of their storage behavior, and the use of non-destructive viability testing methods to prevent cumulative reduction of stored seeds from periodic monitoring. This study examined seed viability in Ivesia webberi, a threatened Great Basin Desert forb in the United States. We investigated inter-annual and inter-population variation in seed viability, the predictive accuracy of non-destructive seed viability testing methods (seed x-ray and multispectral imaging), and the effect of seed size and storage time on seed viability. These data sets contained results of seed viability test using tetrazolium, multispectral imaging and interpretations of x-ray imagery, from 11 populations of I. webberi across three years.