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Exploring the floristic diversity of tropical Africa

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Biology, March 2017
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Title
Exploring the floristic diversity of tropical Africa
Published in
BMC Biology, March 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12915-017-0356-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Marc S. M. Sosef, Gilles Dauby, Anne Blach-Overgaard, Xander van der Burgt, Luís Catarino, Theo Damen, Vincent Deblauwe, Steven Dessein, John Dransfield, Vincent Droissart, Maria Cristina Duarte, Henry Engledow, Geoffrey Fadeur, Rui Figueira, Roy E. Gereau, Olivier J. Hardy, David J. Harris, Janneke de Heij, Steven Janssens, Yannick Klomberg, Alexandra C. Ley, Barbara A. Mackinder, Pierre Meerts, Jeike L. van de Poel, Bonaventure Sonké, Tariq Stévart, Piet Stoffelen, Jens-Christian Svenning, Pierre Sepulchre, Rainer Zaiss, Jan J. Wieringa, Thomas L. P. Couvreur

Abstract

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°, 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'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'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's unique flora.

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Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Cameroon 1 <1%
Sweden 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Denmark 1 <1%
United States 1 <1%
Unknown 271 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 47 17%
Researcher 47 17%
Student > Master 35 13%
Student > Doctoral Student 16 6%
Lecturer 13 5%
Other 47 17%
Unknown 71 26%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 108 39%
Environmental Science 49 18%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 11 4%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 6 2%
Business, Management and Accounting 3 1%
Other 22 8%
Unknown 77 28%