Format: ORAL

Eduardo Fernndez-Pascual1,a (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4743-9577), Angelino Carta2 (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8437-818X), Sergey Rosbakh3 (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4599-6943), Lydia Guja4,5 (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5945-438X), Shyam S Phartyal6 (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3266-6619), Fernando AO Silveira7 (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9700-7521), Si-Chong Chen8,9 (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6855-2595), Julie E Larson10,b (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7968-916X), Borja Jimnez-Alfaro1 (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6601-9597)

1 IMIB Biodiversity Research Institute (University of Oviedo - CSIC - Principality of Asturias), University of Oviedo, E-33600 Mieres, Spain; 2 Department of Biology, Botany Unit, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy; 3 Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, DK-1871 Frederiksberg C, Denmark; 4 National Seed Bank, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Parks Australia, 2601 Acton, ACT, Australia; 5 Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, (a joint venture between Parks Australia and CSIRO), CSIRO, 2601 Acton, ACT, Australia; 6 School of Ecology and Environment Studies, Nalanda University, 803116 Rajgir, India; 7 Department of Genetics, Ecology and Evolution, Federal University of Minas Gerais, 31320290 Belo Horizonte, Brazil; 8 Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 430074 Wuhan, China; 9 Millennium Seed Bank, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, RH176TN Wakehurst, UK; 10 USDA Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, 97720 Burns, OR, US

We present SeedArc, a global initiative to mobilize seed germination data that has been produced by decades of studies on seed ecology and conservation. Seed germination is a key stage in a plants life that is controlled by numerous environmental conditions. Yet, significant amounts of data on germination-environment relationships remain inaccessible and many plant lineages and biomes are underrepresented. Since available information is scattered into a multitude of sources and germination metrics, there is a need for a unified open-science database to archive and share primary seed germination data. To meet this need and to stimulate continental and global eco-evolutionary research, we introduce SeedArc, a global archive of primary seed germination data (www.unioviedo.es/seedarc/; https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19143). We expect SeedArc to strengthen international collaborative projects in plant science, connecting the seed research community with other data synthesis initiatives. In this session, we demonstrate SeedArc's potential to address major research questions in seed ecology, and describe the process for submitting your germination data and participating in collaboration. Most importantly, we extend an open invitation to all holders of seed germination data to submit data and collaborate on SeedArc research projects exploring seed ecology and evolution.