Setting up neopopulations of the endangered endemic sea lavender in Eastern Spain

Summary

Sea lavender (Limonium perplexum), a Critically Endangered, triploid apomictic herb found nowhere else but a roughly 40-square-metre coastal cliff outcrop near Peñíscola, Spain, faces collapse risk from marine storms and had no genetic diversity to draw on for its recovery. Following a 2015 Valencian government recovery plan, the Wildlife Service set out to establish protective neopopulations, propagating seed ex-situ (up to 280 seeds per plant, with germination above 95%) in nurseries kept separate from other Limonium species to prevent hybridization, since the plant's apomictic reproduction meant no genetic risk from repeated ex-situ generations. Since 2005, nine plantations spanning 10 km of coastline near the native population have used between 44 and 1,347 young plants each, planted into rocky crevices and sandbanks whose suitability and soil depth could not be assessed in advance, making site selection the project's central challenge. By 2014, plantations held 434 adult plants against 87 at the native site, though each neopopulation showed an unpredictable one-to-two-year lag before recruitment began, only 33-66% of individuals typically survived their first reproductive season, and co-occurring triploid Limonium relatives raised hybridization concerns, though none has been confirmed; a newly discovered, still-undescribed Limonium species nearby has since narrowed the pool of safe future planting sites. The project rates itself successful, citing the humid cliff microclimate and the species' biological traits, a supportive legal and institutional framework including a passed recovery plan, though it cannot guarantee the native population's long-term survival given the risk of catastrophic marine storms.