Counting complete? Finalising the plant inventory of a global biodiversity hotspot
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Abstract
The Cape Floristic Region – the world’s smallest, but third richest hotspot – experienced sustained levels of taxonomic effort and exploration for almost three centuries resulting in a near-complete plant species inventory. Here we analyse, for a core component of this flora, trends over a 250 year period in taxonomic effort and species discovery linked to ecological and conservation attributes. We show that >40% of species were described within the initial 100 years, followed by a steady rate of description, culminating in <1% of the flora estimated still to be described. A relatively constant cohort of taxonomists working at their ‘taxonomic maximum’ was seen across 250 years, while rates of description remained independent of plant growth-form. Since 1950, narrow-range taxa constituted significantly greater proportions of species discoveries, highlighting the fraction of undiscovered species which exist as localised endemics and thus of high conservation value. In the context of initiated global strategic plans for biodiversity, our dataset provides real world insights for other hotspots to consider the effort required for attaining set targets of comprehensive plant inventories.
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2016. Counting complete? Finalising the plant inventory of a global biodiversity hotspot. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2573v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2573v1note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
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This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Martina Treurnicht conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Jonathan F Colville analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Lucas N Joppa analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Onno Huyser conceived and designed the experiments, reviewed drafts of the paper.
John Manning conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
The raw data has been supplied as a supplementary file.
Funding
J.F.C. is supported by a National Research Foundation of South Africa RCA-Fellowship (Grant 91442). M.T received funding from the Table Mountain Fund (TMF, WWF-SA), the Department of Science and Technology - National Research Foundation (DST–NRF, South Africa) internship programme, and is currently supported by Stellenbosch University and the South African Environmental Observation Network. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
