GROW Webinar: Developing a User-Friendly Gap Analysis Tool to Build More Complete Ex Situ Collections

Ex situ collections play a critical role in conserving crop diversity and supporting research, breeding and resilient food systems. The global botanical community is increasingly working to better understand the strengths and gaps in their collections, while expanding their impact through collaboration, including with genebanks.

Gap analysis helps identify how well collections represent the diversity found in nature, using geographic and ecological coverage as indicators. By revealing what is missing, it guides future collecting efforts and strengthens the overall conservation system.

In this GROW webinar, speakers will introduce the Gap Analysis and Metacollection Management tool GAMMa, a new, user-friendly interface that brings these methods into practice. Through real-world examples and a live demonstration, participants will explore how GAMMa can support more strategic, coordinated conservation of plant diversity.

 

Meet the Speakers

Dr. Emily E. D. Coffey, Vice President for Conservation & Research, Atlanta Botanical Garden

Dr. Emily E. D. Coffey is VP for Conservation & Research at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, where she leads a team of conservation scientists and horticulturists advancing rare plant propagation and ecosystem conservation across the southeastern U.S, Caribbean, and the Americas. She holds a DPhil (PhD) and an MSc from the University of Oxford, a BSc in biology from the University of Missouri, and was formerly an assistant professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She co-chairs the Southeastern Plant Conservation Alliance, leads the Global Conservation Consortium for Magnolias, and co-chairs the US Action Plan Committee for Plant Conservation.

Jean Linsky, Coordinator of the Global Conservation Consortium for Magnolia, Atlanta Botanical Garden

Jean Linsky is the Coordinator of the Global Conservation Consortium for Magnolia. In this role, she works closely with botanic gardens worldwide to develop conservation strategies for threatened Magnolia species and to carry out collaborative conservation activities. Jean received her Masters in Conservation Science from Imperial College London. She has a background in plant biology and has worked in tree conservation in the Neotropics and Southeast Asia. She is a member of the advisory committee of the IUCN SSC Global Tree Specialist Group and board member of the Magnolia Society International.

Dan Carver, Spatial Scientist, Colorado State University's Geospatial Centroid

Dan Carver is a Spatial Scientist specializing in building open-source decision support tools and end-to-end data pipelines. As an expert in R programming and Linux environment management, he has led technical architecture for large-scale geospatial initiatives while maintaining a strong foundation in applied geographic research and plant conservation. Dan received his Master's in Geography from the University of Colorado Denver and is the maintainer of the GapAnalysis R library.