Widespread mistaken identity in tropical plant collections

Abstract

Specimens of plants and animals preserved in museums are the primary source of verifiable data on the geographical and temporal distribution of organisms. Museum datasets are increasingly being uploaded to aggregated regional and global databases (e.g. the Global Biodiversity Information Facility; GBIF) for use in a wide range of analyses. Thus, digitisation of natural history collections is providing unprecedented information to facilitate the study of the natural world on a global scale. The digitisation of this information utilises information provided on specimen labels, and assumes they are correctly identified. Here we evaluate the accuracy of names associated with 4,500 specimens of African gingers from 40 herbaria in 21 countries. Our data show that at least 58% of the specimens had the wrong name prior to a recent taxonomic study. A similar pattern of wrongly named specimens is also shown for Dipterocarps and Ipomoea (morning glory). We also examine the number of available plant specimens worldwide. Our data demonstrate that, while the world's collections have more than doubled since 1970, more than 50% of tropical specimens, on average, are likely to be incorrectly named. This finding has serious implications for the uncritical use of specimen data from natural history collections.

Rapid enhancement of biodiversity occurrence records using unconventional specimen data

“…Nevertheless, associated taxon identifications are expected to be reasonably accurate since collectors are often taxonomic experts and are likely to document associated taxa that they have confidently identified in the field. Misidentifications are not a new problem for users of specimen data (see Goodwin et al 2015) and can be handled through outlier identification and other data quality control methods, or, in some cases, on-site verification. Further investigation on the reliability of associated taxon records and methods to overcome this potential limitation is needed.…”

Notas taxonômicas sobre espécies do gênero Cheilolejeunea (Spruce) Steph. (Lejeuneaceae, Marchantiophyta) descritas por R.M. Schuster para a Jamaica e Venezuela

“…Caulídio com 70 µm de diâmetro, em seção transversal com 7 células corticais e 7 células medulares, paredes espessas; merófi to ventral de duas células de largura. Filídios imbricados, patentes; lobo largamente ovalado, 300-400 µm de comprimento × 250-320 µm de largura, margem dorsal arqueada, inteira, margem dorsal levemente arqueada, inteira, ápice agudo; células oblongas, angulosas, 18-28 µm de comprimento × 13-15 µm de largura, paredes espessas, fortemente mamilosas dorsalmente, trigônios grandes, espessamentos intermediários não distintos; oleocorpos não observados; ocelos ausentes; lóbulo oblongo-ovalado, fortemente infl ado, 180-200 µm de comprimento × 80-100 µm de largura, margem livre fortemente involuta, primeiro dente indistinto, segundo dente agudo, alongado, oblíquo, geralmente oculto pela margem livre involuta, margem Os resultados apresentados aqui ressaltam a importância dos estudos de materiais depositados em Herbários, principalmente de coleções antigas ou pouco estudadas, em que as atualizações nomenclaturais quase sempre são necessárias, como relatado por Goodwin et al (2015). apical oblíqua, papila hialina não visualizada, quilha arqueada, fortemente crenulada por projeções das células mamilosas.…”

Three new species records of Symplocos (Symplocaceae) from northern Peru

“…"Global Biodiversity Information Facility" (GBIF.org), is one of the great efforts of modern biological sciences. Nevertheless, such databases still suffer major flaws regarding mistaken identity of collection specimens (Goodwin et al 2015), accuracy of the georeferencing process, or the correct spelling of scientific names (Amano et al 2016). Using such data on a global scale might reduce this underlying bias due to the high amount of data, but making prediction on a mesoscale level is, on the contrary, highly problematic (Yang et al 2015).…”