Where am I?

UK Overseas Territories Programme

Seed collecting

Turks and Caicos Islands: Kew Connections

Activities in territory

To understand more about its important wetland area, the Turks & Caicos National Trust worked with several partners including Kew to produce a 'Plan for Biodiversity Management and Sustainable Development around Turks & Caicos Ramsar Site'.

Staff members from Kew have visited TCI regularly to assist with fieldwork. During several days of collecting in 2005, 132 herbarium specimens were made. Some species had not previously been known from TCI and others had never been collected for the Kew herbarium, such as the attractive shrub Euphorbia gymnonata.

Kew's UKOTs team collaborates with the TC National Trust on various activities, including promoting the use of native species in landscaping, trying to prevent the accidental introduction of invasive exotic species and attempting to control the spread of naturalised exotic species. We are also working with them on a list of TCI plants threatened in the wild (TCI Red List).

Euphorbia gymnonata

Monitoring invasive species

During fieldwork in 2005, the team made a worrying discovery when it found an invasive scale insect,Toumeyella parvicornis, feeding on the native pine tree, Pinus caribea var. bahamensis. This was the first time this pest had been found in the Caribbean and the first record on this pine species. The insect feeds on the sap of pine trees and emits sugary honeydew. Black sooty mould grows on the honeydew and reduces the amount of light reaching the pine needles. In some parts of TCI's pineyards, 50% of the pine trees have died due to the infestation.

We are currently developing an international working group and seeking funding for a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) study of the severity of the problem and to set up a pine nursery to propagate apparently immune specimens of the pine.

Pine trees killed by scale insect infestation

Seed collecting

During fieldwork on TCI in 2006, seeds from 14 species were collected for storage in the Millennium Seed Bank. A continuing seed collecting programme is underway. Seedlings of two acacias unique to the islands are being grown on in the conservation collection at Kew for further study.

Seedlings germinated at the Millennium Seed Bank as part of the seed viability testing process are being grown on at Kew for further study.

Capacity building

Kew is active in building capacity for conservation within the UK Overseas Territories. Two islanders from the Turks and Caicos have taken part in Kew’s training programme, attending the International Diploma in Herbarium Techniques and the Darwin Initiative funded Threatened Plant Conservation course.

Find out more about the International Diploma Courses

Specimen under the spotlight: Acacia acuifera
Acacia acuifera only grows in the Bahamas archipelago including the Turks and Caicos Islands. It grows in coppice around the coasts of the islands. Coppiced woodland occurs when trees are regularly cut back to ground level with young shoots reappearing from the trees' stumps. Its common name is pork and doughboy, possibly describing the sausage-shaped fruits. The tree is a favourite food source for the endemic Turks and Caicos rock iguana (Cyclura carinata) which feeds on new leaves, flowers and ripe pods. When the trees' seeds have passed through an iguana's digestive system, any beetle larvae which might have infested them are killed off and the seeds germinate more easily. Seeds collected from Acacia acuifera have been put into storage at the Millennium Seed Bank and seedlings resulting from germination trials are being grown on at Kew for eventual display in one of the public glasshouses.