Preservation of bryophytes under lab conditions

A secondary objective of Bryomolecules is to apply methods developed in the project for what is known as ex situ preservation, that is, maintaining collections of endangered species in laboratory cultures. It is undoubtedly always best to preserve the species in their natural environment, but sometimes this is not enough. Lab cultures could potentially be used to replace populations that have gone extinct or reinforce those that are weak. We are gradually building up a pipeline for such efforts.