Question: What Spitsbergen based seed bank serves to protects agricultural diversity in the far north, 1300 km from the North Pole?
Context: Biological bet hedging occurs when organisms suffer decreased fitness in their typical conditions in exchange for increased fitness in stressful conditions.  Biological bet hedging was originally proposed to explain the observation of a seed bank, or a reservoir of ungerminated seeds in the soil.  For example, an annual plant's fitness is maximized for that year if all of its seeds germinate.  However, if a drought occurs that kills germinated plants, but not ungerminated seeds, plants with seeds remaining in the seed bank will have a fitness advantage.  Therefore, it can be advantageous for plants to "hedge their bets" in case of a drought by producing some seeds that germinate immediately and other seeds that lie dormant.  Other examples of biological bet hedging include female multiple mating, foraging behavior in bumble bees, nutrient storage in rhizobia, and bacterial persistence in the presence of antibiotics. Agriculture in Svalbard – the world's northernmost – has a short history, and remains a minor economic factor, but has nonetheless had a culturally and socially significant role, as well as an ecologic impact.  Svalbard is also home to the Global Seed Vault, which serves to protect the world's biological and agricultural diversity. Musa itinerans, the Yunnan banana, is the landmark 24,200th plant species saved at Kew Gardens' Millennium Seed Bank Project.  With this addition the seed bank has collected 10% of the world’s wild plant species.  The endangered "M. itinerans" is native to China and is an important food for wild Asian elephants. Berry Botanic Garden was a botanical garden in southwest Portland, Oregon, in the United States.  In addition to large collections of alpine plants, rhododendrons, primulas, lilies, it was known for its plant-conservation program and its large seed bank that protects rare or endangered plants of the Pacific Northwest.  The seed bank, formally established in 1983, was thought to be the first in the U.S. that was devoted entirely to preserving rare native plants. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: "Svalbard globale frøhvelv" ) is a secure seed bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1300 km from the North Pole.  Conservationist Cary Fowler, in association with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), started the vault to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds that are duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide.  The seed vault is an attempt to ensure against the loss of seeds in other genebanks during large-scale regional or global crises.  The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement between the Norwegian government, the Crop Trust and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP or MSB), formerly known as the Millennium Seed Bank Project, is an international conservation project coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  After being awarded a Millennium Commission grant in 1995, the project commenced in 1996, and is now housed in the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building situated in the grounds of Wakehurst Place, West Sussex.  Its purpose is to provide an "insurance policy" against the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for future use.  The storage facilities consist of large underground frozen vaults preserving the world's largest wild-plant seedbank or collection of seeds from wild species.  The project had been started by Dr Peter Thompson and run by Paul Smith after the departure of Roger Smith.  Roger Smith was awarded the OBE in 2000, in the Queen's New Year Honours for services to the Project. The Australian PlantBank is a seed bank located in the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan.  The seedbank is part of the Millennium Seed Bank Project.  The SeedBank replaced the former NSW Seedbank as part of an upgrade. A canopy seed bank or aerial seed bank is the aggregate of viable seed stored by a plant in its canopy.  Canopy seed banks occur in plants that postpone seed release for some reason. Wakehurst Place, recently rebranded as "Wakehurst", is a house and botanic gardens in West Sussex England, owned by the National Trust but used and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  It is near Ardingly, West Sussex in the High Weald (grid reference TQ340315), and comprises a late 16th-century mansion and a mainly 20th-century garden, and Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank, in a modern building.  Visitors are able to see the gardens, the mansion, and also visit the seed bank.  The garden today covers some 2 square kilometres (500 acres) and includes walled and water gardens, woodland and wetland conservation areas. A seed bank (also seedbank or seeds bank) stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity; hence it is a type of gene bank.  There are many reasons to store seeds.  One reason is to have on-hand the genes that plant breeders need to increase yield, disease resistance, drought tolerance, nutritional quality, taste, etc. of plants used in agriculture (i.e., crops or domesticated species).  Another reason is to forestall loss of genetic diversity in rare or imperiled plant species in an effort to conserve biodiversity ex situ.  Many plants that were used centuries ago by humans are used less frequently now and seed banks offer a way to preserve that historical and cultural value.  Collections of seeds stored at constant low temperature and moisture guard against loss of genetic resources that are otherwise maintained in situ or in field collections.  These alternative 'living' collections can be damaged by natural disasters, outbreaks of disease or war.  Seed banks are considered seed libraries and contain valuable information about evolved strategies to combat plant stress or can be used to create genetically modified versions of existing seeds.  The work of seed banks spans decades and even centuries.  Most seed banks are publicly funded and seeds are usually available for research that benefits the public.
Answer: Svalbard Global Seed Vault