Project Baseline is the name of a unique seed bank specifically designed to facilitate future studies of plant evolution in response to environmental change employing the resurrection approach. The motivation for creating this collection is the recognition that plant species are already responding to climate change, as evidenced by earlier budburst, flowering, and arrival of insect and bird pollinators. However, in only a few cases can we distinguish between phenotypic responses to longer growing seasons and warmer temperatures (plasticity) and genetically based evolutionary change in response to altered patterns of natural selection. In a few cases, direct demonstration of the nature of contemporary change in wild populations has been possible because propagules (e.g., stored seeds, seeds preserved in tundra soils, or eggs in lake sediments) have been fortuitously available in a condition to be revived and grown side-by-side with their contemporary descendants. This "resurrection approach" has permitted phenotypic and genetic comparison of populations representing different time periods. The fundamental goal of Project Baseline is to collect seeds that will be the ancestors in resurrection studies in the future and store them using best practices to preserve their viability and genetic diversity. We have completed the first phase of this national effort and have systematically collected, preserved and archived seeds to be made available to future biologists for studies of evolutionary responses to anthropogenic and natural changes in the environment over the coming decades. With this valuable resource secured, biologists will be able to grow genetically representative samples of past populations contemporaneously with modern samples, applying both long-established and recently developed genetic approaches, as well as ones yet to be developed, to dissect the architecture of genetic change.

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