A taxonomic revision of the Neotropical genus Cremastosperma (Annonaceae), including five new species

Abstract

We present a taxonomic revision of Cremastosperma, a genus of Neotropical Annonaceae occurring in lowland to premontane wet forest, mostly in areas surrounding the Andean mountain chain. We recognise 34 species, describing five as new here: from east of the Andes, C.brachypodum Pirie & Chatrou, sp. nov. and C.dolichopodum Pirie & Maas, sp. nov., endemic to Peru; C.confusum Pirie, sp. nov., from southern Peru and adjacent Bolivia and Brazil; and C.alticola Pirie & Chatrou, sp. nov., at higher elevations in northern Peru and Ecuador; and from west of the Andes, C.osicola Pirie & Chatrou, sp. nov. endemic to Costa Rica, the most northerly distributed species of the genus. We provide an identification key, document diagnostic characters and distributions and provide illustrations and extensive lists of specimens, also presenting the latter in the form of mapping data with embedded links to images available online. Of the 34 species, 22 are regional endemics. On the basis of the extent of occurrence and area of occupancy of species estimated from the distribution data, we designate IUCN threat categries for all species. Fourteen species proved to be endangered (EN) and a further one critically endangered (CR), reflecting their rarity and narrow known distributions.

Accelerating the discovery of rare tree species in Amazonian forests: integrating long monitoring tree plot data with metabolomics and phylogenetics for the description of a new species in the hyperdiverse genus Inga Mill

“…This lapse of time is considerably less than the average time that takes species descriptions, which can be of decades ( Baker et al, 2017 ; Ter Steege et al., 2019 ). The advent of omics for large-scale plant identification, such as metabolomics and genomics, provides a valuable additional source of data that can facilitate the identification of plant species, with the additional benefit of providing information on functional traits and evolutionary history for many groups of trees ( Pirie, Chatrou & Maas, 2018 ; Guevara Andino et al., 2019 ; Endara et al, 2018 ; Endara et al, 2021 ). Thus, accelerating taxonomic recognition in challenging tropical biomes would benefit from the synergy produced by these different approaches.…”