Bench marks

worldwide have been trained in seed conservation techniques. Paul Smith, head of the MSB, said: " Plant diversity is a vital part of the system upon which we depend. The need for the kind of insurance policy the Millennium Seed Bank provides has never been greater ". Earlier last month another project was launched to document all the 1.8 million named species of life on Earth. Called the Encyclopedia of Earth, the aim is to provide everyone with up-to-date, multi-media information on all known species, including new ones as they are discovered. The project has been launched by the Field Museum at Harvard University, the Marine Biology Laboratory at Woods Hole, the Smithsonian Institution and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. " The Encyclopedia of Life will provide valuable biodiversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere, at any time, " says James Edwards, executive director of the project. The effort is backed by a $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and $2.5 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. " Through collaboration, we all can increase our appreciation of the immense variety of life, the challenges to it, and ways to conserve biodiversity. " Key harvest: Millenium Seed Bank collaborators in Mali collect seed from a vital but threatened bamboo species. (Photo: RBG Kew.) And a new study suggests that people respond not only to green spaces, but also the amount of biodiversity they experience in those spaces too. A team led by Richard Fuller at the University of Sheffield, reporting in Biology Letters (published online) set out to measure the degree of biodiversity in a number of public green spaces in and around the city. They then sampled quadrants of different habitat types to assess the number of plant species growing there. They also assessed the number of butterfly species present and the number of birds heard or seen at the different sites. The team then questioned users about their psychological well-being and perception of the biodiversity at the site they were at. They found a positive link between perceived and measured species richness, particularly with plants. Further, they also found positive associations between species richness and the well-being of greenspace visitors. These results indicate that the respondents " are not completely disconnected from an experience of biodiversity ". Bench marks More and more prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs are being issued. But there is a …