Exploring the floristic diversity of tropical Africa

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F17%3A10370649" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/17:10370649 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12915-017-0356-8" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12915-017-0356-8</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12915-017-0356-8" target="_blank" >10.1186/s12915-017-0356-8</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Exploring the floristic diversity of tropical Africa

Original language description

Understanding the patterns of biodiversity distribution and what influences them is a fundamental pre-requisite for effective conservation and sustainable utilisation of biodiversity. Such knowledge is increasingly urgent as biodiversity responds to the ongoing effects of global climate change. Nowhere is this more acute than in species-rich tropical Africa, where so little is known about plant diversity and its distribution. In this paper, we use RAINBIO - one of the largest mega-databases of tropical African vascular plant species distributions ever compiled - to address questions about plant and growth form diversity across tropical Africa. The filtered RAINBIO dataset contains 609,776 georeferenced records representing 22,577 species. Growth form data are recorded for 97% of all species. Records are well distributed, but heterogeneous across the continent. Overall, tropical Africa remains poorly sampled. When using sampling units (SU) of 0.5 degrees, just 21 reach appropriate collection density and sampling completeness, and the average number of records per species per SU is only 1.84. Species richness (observed and estimated) and endemism figures per country are provided. Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Ivory Coast and Liberia appear as the botanically best-explored countries, but none are optimally explored. Forests in the region contain 15,387 vascular plant species, of which 3013 are trees, representing 5-7% of the estimated world&apos;s tropical tree flora. The central African forests have the highest endemism rate across Africa, with approximately 30% of species being endemic. The botanical exploration of tropical Africa is far from complete, underlining the need for intensified inventories and digitization. We propose priority target areas for future sampling efforts, mainly focused on Tanzania, Atlantic Central Africa and West Africa. The observed number of tree species for African forests is smaller than those estimated from global tree data, suggesting that a significant number of species are yet to be discovered. Our data provide a solid basis for a more sustainable management and improved conservation of tropical Africa&apos;s unique flora, and is important for achieving Objective 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation 2011-2020. In turn, RAINBIO provides a solid basis for a more sustainable management and improved conservation of tropical Africa&apos;s unique flora.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2017

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

BMC Biology

ISSN

1741-7007

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

15

Issue of the periodical within the volume

March

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

23

Pages from-to

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UT code for WoS article

000395477900002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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