Staff Members of the Israel Plant Gene Bank

Dr. Alon Singer - Botanist, in charge of the plant collection activities (E- mail)

Dr, Alexandra Keren -Lab Technician

M.Sc Dan Schafferman - (pensioner) Lab Technician, Seed collection maintenance (E-mail)

M.Sc Sivan Golan -  Lab Technician (E-mail)

M.Sc Itzahk Kamara- Lab Technician 

Tomer Faraj - Lab Technician, field maintenance 

Vered Sason -  Lab Technician 

Sarit Hadad - Administration (E-mail)

Andrey Beerman - Database Manager

Former

Alexandra sirota - Database Manager and Web site Designer

Research Activites

• Ex-situ and in-situ conservation of Plant Genetic Resources (PGR).
• Collection, regeneration and characterization of local landraces and wild relatives of plants germplasm.
• Studies of the Israeli wild plant biodiversity; morphological, biochemical and molecular characterization of the Israeli gene bank collections.

Current Projects

• Collection, characterization and conservation of Israeli plant genetic resources and development of the Israeli gene bank documentation.
• Collection and conservation of rare, endangered and endemic species of the Israeli flora.
• Studies of the genetic variation among Origanum syriacum populations.
• Sustainable use of plant genetic resources - European Commission 6 th Framework Programme for Research, Specific Support Action. Networking on conservation and use of plant genetic resources in Europe and Asia - DIVERSEEDS
• Israeli and Palestinian cooperation - Landrace Seed Conservancy
• Characterizing  the storage potential of seeds in the gene bank collection. this project is funded by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. 

Collection and conservation of the native Israeli flora

We are focusing on three types of populations:

1. Crop Wild Relatives, species that are progenitors of crops as well as species which are closely related to crops. Used as important resource for improving agricultural production.
2. Land-races - Genetic material that has been utilized by humans for thousands of years and adapted to the natural and cultural environment.
3. Rare, Endemic and endangered plants

The collection of CWR are performed according to priority list of 300-400 plant species which developed on the basis of ranked values of seven criteria (Genetic relation to cultivated crops, Rarity of growing habitat, Distribution, Abundance, Extinction risk Endemism, Status in the IGB collection) The sum of the different criteria was sorted according to increasing values and used as the decision-making basis to divide the seed-collection making into high, low and two intermediate priority groups. The target species list update evry year according to the samples that were collected.

Each year we collect about 600-1000 samples that were cleaned, dried and transfer to the gene bank storage rooms.   

Collection and conservation of rare endemic and endangered species

This project is collaboration between the Israel Plant Gene Bank and the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority.

Based on the Red Book which classified 414 plant species as endangered in Israel (including 36 species that have been extinct since the 1960s), we set priority to collect and conserve these species as a core collection for restoration and as a backup for the wild populations. After three year of the project we succeeded to collect 186 different species (Table below). 

·         Hadas, R. (2000).Tobamovirus in pepper (Capsicum annuum) seeds. In: Kees van Ettekoven ed. Seed health testing methods reference manual, ISHI-VEGETABLE. Naktuinnbouw, The Netherlands. P: 56-57 Electronic version at ISF:http://www.worldseed.org/

·         Hadas, R. (2000). Tobamovirus in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) seeds. In: Kees van Ettekoven ed. Seed health testing methods reference manual, ISHI-VEGETABLE. Naktuinnbouw, The Netherlands P: 77-79. Electronic version at ISF: http://www.worldseed.org/

·         Hadas, R., Kritzman, G., Gefen, T. and Manulis, S. (2001).Detection, Quantification and Characterization ofErwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora contaminating pepper seeds. Plant Pathology 50: 117-123.

·         Kleitman, F., Ajtkhozhina, N., Dzaimurzina, A., Hadas, R., Barash, I. and Manulis, S. (2003). Development of a PCR-detection method for Xanthomonas campestris pv.campestris in crucifer seeds.(Poster) 8^th International Congress of Plant Pathology, volume 2, p. 322

·         Hadas, R., Pearlsman, M., Gefen, T., Lachman, O., Hadar, E. Sharabany, G. and Antignus, Y. (2004). An Indexing System for the Tobamovirus (Tomato Mosaic Virus) in Commercial Tomato Seed Lots. Phytoparasitica 32: (4) 421-424.

·         Dai, N., Cohen, S., Moi, M., Hadas, R., Petreikov, M., Shen, S., Granot, D. and Schaffer, A. (2004).Comparison of promoter regions of vacuolar invertase from green-fruited, sucrose-accumulating and red-fruited, hexose-accumulatingLycopersicon species. 1^st Solanaceae genome WorkshopWageningen, The Netherlands.

·         Hadas, R., Pearlsman, M., Gefen, T., Lachman, O. andAntignus, Y. (2004). Detection System for Tomato MosaicTobamovirus (ToMV) in Tomato Seed Lots. Field, garden and farmstead 12: 32-36. (Hebrew)

·         Hadas, R., Kritzman, G., Klietman, F., Gefen, T. and Manulis, S. (2005). Comparison of extraction procedures and determination of the detection threshold for Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis in tomato seeds. Plant Pathology: 54: 643-649.

·         Hadas, R., Agami, M. and Horovitz, A. (2005). Managing passport data associated with seed collections from wild populations: increasing potential for conservation and use of CWR in Israel. 1st International Conference on Crop Wild Relatives Conservation and Use, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy (abs.)

·         Hadas, R., Shmueli, O., Luhua, S., Sirota, A., Kroitor, T., Galili, G. and Dudai, N. (2005). Genetic variation in and between wild populations of Origanum syriacum in Israel. 1st International Conference on Crop Wild Relatives Conservation and Use, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy (abs.)

·         Barkan, G., Hadas, R., Edelstein, M., Leibman, D. and Gal-On, A. (2006). Characterization of Cucurbita moschata and C. maxima Lines for Resistance to RNA Viruses Using Classical and Molecular Tools. The 27th Meeting of the Israeli Phytopathological Society (abs.)

·         Rogosa, E., Ali-Shtayeh, M. S., G'naim, L., Hadas, R., Solowey, E. and Jaradat, A. (2006). Participatory Breeding of Threatened Mideast Landraces as a strategy for Genetic Conservation and Regional Cooperation European Consortium for Organic Plant Breeding (ECO-PB) Workshop on Participatory Plant Breeding. 11-13 June, 2006 La Besse, South West France.

·         Hadas R. (2006). The National Israeli Gene Bank of the regional flora. 'Yevul See' Magazine for Advanced Agriculture 18: 38-39, (Hebrew)

·         Hadas, R. and Sirota, A. (2006). An overview of the goals and functions of The Israeli Gene Bank for Agricultural Crops.Israel Journal of Plant Science 54: 149-156.

·         Vaknin, Y., Hadas, R., Schafferman, D., Murkhovsky, L. and Bashan, N. (2007). The potential of milk thistle (Silybum marianum L.), an Israeli native, as a source of edible sprouts rich in antioxidants', International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 1 - 8 DOI:10.1080/09637480701554095,

·         Sirota, A., Volpin, H. Madi, A., & Hadas, R. (2007). The Israeli Gene Bank Documentation Center - A Novel Infrastructure for Knowledge Discovery. 5th European Conference on Computational Biology January 21-24, Eilat Israel (abs.).

·         Hadas, R., (2007). The Israel National Plant Gene Bank. Restoring Ancient wheat, WS, November 29, Bet-Dagan, Israel. (abs.).

·         Hadas, R., Perevolotsky, A., Scafferman, D., Singer, A., and Barazani, O. (2007). Conservation of Israel Ornamental and Forestry genetic resources. Flower world. September-October 20-23, (Hebrew)

·         Edelstein, M., Hadas, R., Barkan, G. and Gal-On, A. (2007). Diversity within Cucurbita maxima and C. moschata for Resistance to RNA Viruses Cucurbit Genetics Cooperative Report 28-29: 77-78 (2005-2006)

·         Hadas R. (2007).Plant Noah's ark. Agro Mashov 221:32-34, (Hebrew)

·         Moy, M., Dai, N., Cohen, S., Hadas, R., Granot, D., Petrikov, M., Yeselson, Y., Shen, S. and Schaffer, A. A. (2007).The Presence of a retrotransposon in the promoter region of the TIV gene encoding for soluble acid invertase distinguishes between the sucrose and hexose accumulating species of Lycopersicon. Acta Hort. (ISHS) 745: 429-436

·         Hadas, R., Perevolotsky, A., Scafferman, D., Singer, A., and Barazani, O. (2007). Conservation of Israel Ornamental and Forestry genetic resources. Flower world. July-August 35-39 (Hebrew).

·         Barkan, G., Hadas, R., Edelstein, M., Leibman, D. and Gal-On, A. (2007). Characterization of Cucurbita moschata and C. maxima Lines for Resistance to RNA Viruses Using Classical and Molecular Tools. Field, garden and farmstead (Sade Vayerek) 2: 8-12 (Hebrew)

·         Barazani, O., Perevolotsky, A., and Hadas, R. (2008). A problem of the rich: Prioritizing local plant genetic resources for ex-situ conservation in Israel. Biological Conservation141: 596-600

·         Hadas, R., Sirota, A., Agami, M. and Horovitz, A. (2008). Managing passport data associated with seed collections from wild populations: increasing potential for conservation and use of crop wild relatives in Israel. In: Crop Wild Relative Conservation and Use. (Maxted, N., Ford-Lloyd, B.V., Kell, S.P., Iriondo, J., Dulloo, E. and Turok, J. eds.) pp. 513-520. CAB International, Wallingford UK.

·         Snowball, R., Hadas, R., Galili, S., Ur, Y., Nichols, P. and Kigel, J. (2009). Collecting pasture legumes in Israel with a focus on species of importance to southern Australia. Plant Genetic Resource Newsletter - FAO-Bioversity. Issue No.155, page 15- 24.

·         Ford-Lloyd, B.V. Schmidt, M., Armstrong, S.J., Barazani, O., Engels, J., Ge, S., Hadas, R., Hammer, K., Kell, S.P., Kang, D., Khoshbakht, K., Li, Y., Long, C., Lu, B-R., Ma, K.,  Nguyen, V.T., Qiu, L., Wei, W., Zhang, Z., Maxted. N. (2011).  Crop wild relatives – Undervalued, Underutilized and Under Threat? BioScience Vol. 61, No. 7, pp. 559-565, DOI: 10.1525/bio.2011.61.7.toc URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/bio.2011.61.7.toc

·         Ben-Hur, E., Fragman-Sapir, O., Hadas, R., Singer, A. and Kadmon, R. (2012).Functional trade-offs increase species diversity in experimental plant communities Ecology Letters, 15 (11): 1276 – 82 doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01850.

·         Singer, A., Scafferman, D., Golan, S., Yadin, O., Hadad, S., Paz -Aviram, T. and Hadas, R. (2008). Israel Plant Gene Bank.'Yevul See' Magazine for Advanced Agriculture 35: 14-18, (Hebrew)

·         Hadas, R., Kamenetsky, R. and Fragman-Sapir, O, (2009). Ex-situ conservation of Israel's native geophytes - source for development of new ornamental crops. Israel Journal of Plant Sciences. 57: 277-285, DOI: 10.1560/IJPS.57.4.277

·         Hadas, R., Barazani, O., Singer, A. and Perevolotsky, A. (2009). The native flora of Israel - Conservation and management. A special issue of the second DIVERSITAS Newsletter dedicated to the Cape Town Open Science Conference, "Biodiversity and Society: Understanding connections, Adapting to change" Cape Town, S. Africa, 13-16 Oct. 2009. p:206 (abs.).

·         Singer, A., Walczak, M., Ur, Y., Golan, S. and Hadas, R. (2009). Conservation of rare-endangered and endemic species in Israel. A special issue of the second DIVERSITAS Newsletter dedicated to the Cape Town Open Science Conference, "Biodiversity and Society: Understanding connections, Adapting to change" Cape Town, S. Africa, 13-16 October 2009. p.: 257 (abs.).

·         Barazani, O., Hadas, R., Perevolotsky, A. (2009) Conservation and research efforts at the Israel Plant Gene-Bank. Plant Conservation for the Next Decade: A Celebration of Kew's 250th Anniversary. London, GB. (abs.).

·         Sitrit,Y., Turgeman, T., Kagan-Zur, V., Roth-Bejerano, N., Lewinsohn, E., Hadas, R.,  Singer, A., Zaady,E., Kapulnik, Y., and Koltai, H. (2013). Pre-symbiotic interactions between Terfezia boudieri and Helianthemum sessiliflorum reveal a novel role for auxin: redirection of roots growth by intervention in gravitropism 7th International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM7) 6-11 January 2013, New Delhi, India.