scholarly journals Descriptive Data Challenges for the World Flora Online

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e26731
Author(s):  
Chuck Miller ◽  
William Ulate
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Trees ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Threat Status ◽  
International Botanical ◽  
Plant Names ◽  
The World ◽  
Management Project ◽  
Data Elements

The World Flora Online (WFO) is primarily a data management project initiated in 2012 in response to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation – "To create an online flora of all known plants by 2020". A WFO Consortium has been formed of now 42 international partners with a governing Council and three Working Groups. The World Flora Online Public Portal (www.worldfloraonline.org) was launched at the International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen, China in July, 2017. The baseline Public Portal was primarily populated with a taxonomic backbone of information gathered from The Plant List augmented by newer taxonomic sources like Solanaceae Source. To support all known plant names in the WFO. including both vascular and non-vascular plants, new WFO identifiers (WFOIDs) were created, which were also cross-referenced to the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) identifiers for plant names included there. The next phase of the World Flora Online involves additional enhancement of the taxonomic backbone by engagement of new plant Taxonomic Expert Networks (TENs) and acceleration of ingestion of descriptive data from digital floras and monographs, and other sources like International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat assessments and the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) Global Tree Assessment. Descriptive data can be text descriptions, images, geographic distributions, identification keys, phylogenetic trees, as well as atomized trait data like threat status, lifeform or habitat. Initial digital descriptive datasets have been received by WFO from Flora of Brazil, Flora of South Africa, Flora of China, Flora of North Africa, Solanaceae Source and several others. The hard work is underway to match the names associated with the submitted descriptions to the names and WFOIDs in the World Flora Online taxonomic backbone and then merging the descriptive data elements into the WFO database. Numerous data tools have been adopted and created to accomplish the data cleaning, standardization and transformation required before descriptive data can be integrated. The WFO project has discovered many variations between just the few datasets received so far, which highlights the need for better standardization and controlled vocabularies for flora and monographic descriptive data. This presentation will review some of the issues identified by the project when merging descriptive data and some potential gaps in the TDWG standards specifically for flora descriptive data. Some opportunities for consideration by the TDWG Species Information Interest Group will be presented.

scholarly journals The World Flora Online – Research Infrastructure for Plant Conservation

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuck Miller
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Trees ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Flora Of Australia ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Threat Status ◽  
International Botanical ◽  
International Botanical Congress ◽  
The World ◽  
Data Elements

The World Flora Online (WFO) project was initiated in 2012 in response to Target 1 of the Congress on Biological Diversity's Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) – "To create an online flora of all known plants by 2020". Target 1 is intended to enable and support the additional 15 targets of the GSPC because plant conservation requires a stable foundation of taxonomic and descriptive information. A WFO Consortium has been formed of 42 international partners and growing. The World Flora Online Public Portal (www.worldfloraonline.org) was launched at the International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen, China in July, 2017. The baseline Public Portal was initially populated with a taxonomic backbone of plant names and taxonomic data gathered from The Plant List, later augmented by newer taxonomic sources like Solanaceae Source. All names in the backbone are assigned globally unique WFOIDs that facilitate ingestion and update of both taxonomic and descriptive data. The next phase of the World Flora Online involves more enhancement of the taxonomic backbone by new plant Taxonomic Expert Networks (TENs) and acceleration of ingestion of descriptive data from digital floras and monographs, as well as threat status data from other sources like International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Descriptive data can include text descriptions, images, geographic distributions, identification keys, phylogenetic trees, as well as atomized trait data like threat status, lifeform or habitat. Initial digital descriptive datasets have been incorporated from Flora of Brazil, Flora of South Africa, Flora of China, Flora of North Africa, Flora of Australia, and many others. Hard work continues to match the names associated with the newly submitted descriptions to the names in the WFO taxonomic backbone and then ingest the descriptive data elements into the WFO database. Numerous data tools have been added to the WFO infrastructure to accomplish the data cleaning, standardization and transformation required before descriptive data can be integrated. This presentation will review the history of WFO, the design of the WFO infrastructure and plans for its use, and future directions.

scholarly journals The e-Flora of South Africa – restructuring data to comply with Darwin Core standards for inclusion into the World Flora Online

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fhatani Ranwashe ◽  
Marianne Le Roux
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Data Standards ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Bibliographic Records ◽  
Darwin Core ◽  
The World ◽  
Botanical Research

The e-Flora of South Africa project was initiated in 2013 by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in support of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC, 2011-2020). South Africa's flora consists of ca. 21,000 taxa of which more than half are endemic. South Africa will contribute a national Flora towards Target 1 of the GSPC ("To create an online flora of all known plants by 2020"). South Africa's contribution is ca. 6% of the world’s flora of which ca. 3% are endemic and therefore unique. South Africa’s electronic Flora is comprised of previously published descriptions. South Africa’s e-Flora data forms part of the Botanical Dataset of Southern Africa (BODATSA) that is currently managed through the Botanical Research And Herbarium Management System (BRAHMS). To date, South Africa’s e-Flora data (http://ipt.sanbi.org.za/iptsanbi/resource?r=flora_descriptions) represents 19,539 indigenous taxa, 79,139 descriptions of distribution, morphological, habitat and diagnostic data, and 27,799 bibliographic records. The e-Flora data was recently published online using the Integrated Publishing Toolkit and henceforth harvested by the World Flora Online (WFO) into the portal. A series of challenges were encountered while manipulating descriptive data from BRAHMS to be ingested by the WFO portal; from taxonomic issues to data quality issues not excluding compliance to data standards. To contribute to the WFO portal, the taxa in BODATSA has to match with the taxa in the WFO taxonomic backbone. Once there is a match, a unique WFO taxon identifier is assigned to the taxa in BODATSA. This process presented various challenges because the WFO taxonomic backbone and the taxonomic classification system that is used by South Africa (South African National Plant Checklist) does not fully correlate. The schema used to store taxonomic data also does not agree between BRAHMS and WFO and had to be addressed. To enable consistency for future, a detailed guideline document was created providing all the steps and actions that should be taken when publishing an e-Flora, managed in BRAHMS, to the WFO portal. The presentation will focus on matching taxonomic classifications between BRAHMS and WFO; dealing with character encoding issues and manipulating data to meet Darwin Core standards.

Recent Developments

2004 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon C. Lovett
Keyword(s):  
Biological Diversity ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
International Botanical ◽  
International Botanical Congress ◽  
The Status ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Essential Resource

At the 1999 International Botanical Congress held in St Louis, Missouri, the President of the Congress, Dr Peter Raven, presented a keynote address emphasizing the importance of plants to human existence and underlined concerns that the Earth is undergoing a human-induced extinction crisis. One of the resolutions of the congress was to establish a new co-ordinating body associated with the United Nations to monitor the status of plants throughout the world and take steps to conserve them. The resolutions were followed up with a meeting in Gran Canaria on 3–4 April, 2000 when leading botanists met to formulate a declaration which could be taken forward to the fifth Conference of the Parties (CoP5) to the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Nairobi in May 2000. CoP5 recognized that plant diversity is a common concern of humankind and an essential resource for the planet, with as many as two-thirds of the world's plant species in danger of extinction, and proposed that at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP6) the establishment of a global strategy for plant conservation should be considered. A strategy with 16 targets was presented and adopted at the CoP6 meeting held in The Hague in April 2002. These targets differ from the normal approach adopted in the Convention on Biological Diversity of using general principles that can be interpreted by national policy, in that they are quantified.

The genus Isoetes (Isoetaceae): a provisional checklist of the accepted and unresolved taxa

Phytotaxa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 277 (2) ◽  
pp. 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANGELO TROIA ◽  
JOVANI B. PEREIRA ◽  
CHANGKYUN KIM ◽  
W. CARL TAYLOR
Keyword(s):  
Species Diversity ◽  
South America ◽  
Chromosome Numbers ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Diagnostic Features ◽  
The World ◽  
Center Of Diversity ◽  
Distribution Mapping ◽  
Floristic Studies

Isoetes is a widely distributed lycophyte genus of at least 200 species occurring in diverse habitats. The species can be difficult to identify because Isoetes, with its apparent simplicity of form and conserved morphology, provides few diagnostic features to reliably distinguish its species. The last worldwide monograph, published nearly a century ago, listed 77 taxa. The first step in producing a flora or monograph of all known species of a genus is to compile a list of the acceptable species names. The list presented here is a compilation of 192 accepted names representing taxa from regions around the world: chromosome numbers were assigned to 101 of them, with polyploidy settled on 46.7%. Distribution mapping of the accepted species indicates that South America is the center of diversity for Isoetes and species diversity is the highest in temperate regions. Many of the species on this list are rare and have limited ranges. The list of taxa can be used to initiate floristic studies and conservation efforts in keeping with the target goals of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.

scholarly journals Conservation of crop genetic resources in Brazil in the context of the target 9 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation

Rodriguésia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 1557-1565
Author(s):  
Juliano Gomes Pádua
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Resources ◽  
Plant Genetic Resources ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Wild Plants ◽  
Cultivated Plants ◽  
Crop Species ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Cultivated Species

Abstract Cultivated species, on which humankind depends for survival, have been created by farmers that have crossed and selected wild plants and developed landraces. Early in 20th century, the theory of Centers of Origin of Cultivated Plants was proposed by Vavilov. He also warned the world about the loss of plant genetic diversity due to the dominance of a small number of genetically similar crops, a fact that help starting a movement for the conservation of plant genetic resources. From this time, several strategies and institutions were established around the world to act in plant genetic resources (PGR) conservation. In Brazil, a remarkable player in PGR conservation, some institutions conserve several crop species as well as their wild relatives and other socio-economically valuable plant species. In this paper we present the status of PGR conservation in Brazil as well as initiatives and laws aiming at respecting, preserving and maintaining associated indigenous and local knowledge, in the context of the target 9 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.

scholarly journals An annotated checklist of the vascular plants of Aberdare Ranges Forest, a part of Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot

PhytoKeys ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 1-88
Author(s):  
Solomon Kipkoech ◽  
David Kimutai Melly ◽  
Benjamin Watuma Muema ◽  
Neng Wei ◽  
Peris Kamau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Vascular Plants ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Endemic Plant ◽  
East African ◽  
Voucher Specimen ◽  
The World ◽  
African Rift ◽  
Endemic Plant Species ◽  
Annotated Checklist

The Aberdare Ranges Forest, located in the Central highlands of Kenya, is an isolated volcanic mountain in the East African Rift Valley with unique flora. Despite its refugial importance to rare and endemic plant species, the diversity of plants in the Aberdare Ranges Forest remains poorly understood. The checklist presented here is a collation of data obtained from multiple floristic surveys and from herbarium specimen collections from the forest. A total of 1260 vascular plants taxa representing 136 families, 613 genera, 67 subspecies and 63 varieties are documented. The ferns comprised 84 species, lycophytes seven, gymnosperms six and angiosperms were 1163 taxa. This represents 17.9% of the Kenyan taxa, 1.7% of the African taxa and 0.3% of all the vascular plants known in the world. A total of 18 taxa were endemic and 14 taxa were found to be threatened globally. The life form, voucher specimen(s), habitat and distribution range of each taxon and a brief analysis of taxa diversity is presented in this checklist. This is the first comprehensive inventory of vascular plants in the entire Aberdare Ranges, providing a solid basis for more sustainable management and improved conservation of this montane forest. The checklist is also an important contribution to the world checklist of plants required by the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.

scholarly journals Developing a World Flora Online - a 2020 challenge to the world's botanists from the international community

Rodriguésia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 939-946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Wyse Jackson ◽  
James S. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Online Portal ◽  
Flora Of China ◽  
The World ◽  
Digital Formats

Abstract The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted as its first target in 2010 the preparation of "An online flora of all known plants" by 2020. This target was subsequently adopted by a broadly-based international consortium of botanical institutions that have committed themselves to undertaking this ambitious project. The preparation of a world flora will be the first modern and large-scale and comprehensive attempt to produce a comprehensive overview and baseline of knowledge on the world's plant diversity. This article outlines previous historic efforts to document the world's known flora. It also describes the ways in which the World Flora Online Consortium was created, how it is organized and its plans to compile diverse datasets available in digital formats into a single online portal available and open to all. Such data are being combined from geographical floristic accounts, such as the Flora of China, the Flora of North America and many other regional and national projects, together with relevant monographic treatments.

scholarly journals The sixth World Flora Online Council meeting held in South Africa

Bothalia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Marianne Le Roux ◽  
Ronell R. Klopper ◽  
Peter S. Wyse Jackson ◽  
Pierre-Andre Loizeau ◽  
Janine E. Victor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Council Meeting ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
The South ◽  
International Botanical ◽  
International Botanical Congress

Background: Biannual Council meetings are held with the aim of developing a World Flora Online (WFO) in response to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (2011–2020).Objectives: To report on the sixth WFO Council meeting held in Pretoria, South Africa, on November 2016.Method: A WFO Council meeting (preceded by Taxonomic and Technical Working Group meetings) was hosted by the South African National Biodiversity Institute in Pretoria.Results: Significant progress with the development of the WFO portal was made.Conclusion: The WFO portal will be launched at the International Botanical Congress in China in 2017.

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