RAINBIO: a mega-database of tropical African vascular plants distributions

By

Dauby, Gilles
Zaiss, Rainer
Blach-Overgaard, Anne
Catarino, Luís
Damen, Theo
Deblauwe, Vincent
Dessein, Steven
Dransfield, John
Droissart, Vincent
Duarte, Maria Cristina
Engledow, Henry
Fadeur, Geoffrey
Figueira, Rui
Gereau, Roy E.,
Hardy, Olivier
Harris, David J.
de Heij, Janneke
Janssens, Steven
Klomberg, Yannick
Ley, Alexandra Caroline 1976-
MacKinder, Barbara
Meerts, Pierre
Poel, Jeike L. van de
Sonké, Bonaventure
Sosef, Marc
Stévart, Tariq
Stoffelen, Piet
Svenning, Jens-Christian
Sepulchre, Pierre
Burgt, Xander van der, 1958-
Wieringa, Jan
Couvreur, Thomas

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2016

Original Publication

PhytoKeys

Volume

74

Pages

1-18

Subjects

biodiversity assessment , cultivated species , Digitization , georeferencing , Habit , Herbarium specimens , native species , taxonomic backbone , tropical forests

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers [2010]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.74.9723

 

Abstract

The tropical vegetation of Africa is characterized by high levels of species diversity but is undergoing important shifts in response to ongoing climate change and increasing anthropogenic pressures. Although our knowledge of plant species distribution patterns in the African tropics has been improving over the years, it remains limited. Here we present RAINBIO, a unique comprehensive mega-database of georeferenced records for vascular plants in continental tropical Africa. The geographic focus of the database is the region south of the Sahel and north of Southern Africa, and the majority of data originate from tropical forest regions. RAINBIO is a compilation of 13 datasets either publicly available or personal ones. Numerous in depth data quality checks, automatic and manual via several African flora experts, were undertaken for georeferencing, standardization of taxonomic names and identification and merging of duplicated records. The resulting RAINBIO data allows exploration and extraction of distribution data for 25,356 native tropical African vascular plant species, which represents ca. 89% of all known plant species in the area of interest. Habit information is also provided for 91% of these species.