Drylands: Tropical America
Recent Achievements
Collections (2001-2005)
Kew’s collections of herbarium specimens from Tropical America are of global significance and, thanks to in-house expertise and relatively frequent visits from international taxonomic specialists, largely well named. Thus, whilst the collections continue to grow (primarily through gifts and exchanges from overseas herbaria), our current focus remains on making existing collections and associated data available to researchers throughout the world. This is partly achieved through regular loans of specimens or (where there are concerns for their safety) specimen images, but also through data sharing initiatives.
Between 2001 and 2005 we completed the first phase of the Repatriation of Herbarium Data from Northeast Brazil, with 50% of the region’s plant families (chosen to reflect conservation/economic significance or Kew’s areas of taxonomic expertise) checked, databased and imaged (type specimens). More than 28,000 specimens were databased, and 1,649 images of type material were repatriated to each of four Brazilian herbaria. These data have been made available to our Brazilian partners through PNE, and are searchable on the internet. In the course of this work, five young Brazilian botanists were each given 12 months of valuable training and experience, whilst contributing to the curation of the collections they were working on. We are currently evaluating the demand for additional data and the most effective mechanisms for delivering it through a survey of user groups.
We have also made historic herbarium material available over the internet, together with economic botany artefacts and field notebooks, through the Richard Spruce project. Undertaken in collaboration with the Natural History Museum, this project has now completed the cataloguing, databasing and imaging of all Spruce’s collections from Peru and Ecuador.
Access to our collections by Latin American researchers has been greatly increased by the Kew Latin American Research Fellowships (KLARF) and Margaret Mee Fellowships programmes. Eighty-two research fellowships, of between one and 12 months, were awarded by these programmes between 2001 and 2005 (43 KLARF, 39 Margaret Mee), with an additional five Brazilian Artist Scholarships. Most visiting researchers have consulted Kew’s collections as well as those of the Natural History Museum and other European herbaria. The scientific results of these visits, often produced in collaboration with Kew staff, are contributing to a body of valuable research publications. These programmes are also creating important opportunities for young Latin American researchers to broaden their skills and experience.
Baseline Plant Diversity Research (2001-2005)
Baseline plant diversity research remains a fundamental component of our work in Tropical America. Kew’s taxonomic specialists, in many cases working in collaboration with Tropical American botanists, have produced over 140 publications in this field over the last five years, including a number of major revisions and floristic treatments. For the Cactaceae, for example, two significant new publications have been produced during this period: Cacti of Eastern Brazil and the New Cactus Lexicon. Both are the final products of long-running field and herbarium research projects, and represent major contributions to global knowledge of an important Neotropical plant family.
In NE Brazil, working with our Brazilian partners in PNE, we have now completed the checklist of the plants of the region through the Plant Information for Northeast Brazil project. This again has been a major, long-running enterprise, involving taxonomic input from a number of Kew specialists and the coordination of a great many others around the world. The checklist, which includes 9,435 taxa (8,723 species of 2,093 genera and 185 families), is now available online through Centro de Informação sobre Plantas (CNIP), the plant information centre established through PNE’s Information, Dissemination and Training (IDT) sub-programme (see Sustainable Utilisation of Plant Resources). The checklist will be available as a hard copy publication in 2006.
Analyses of data from Kew’s herbarium collections from NE Brazil, catalogued by the Repatriation of Herbarium Data for Northeastern Brazil project, are already being published as checklists on a family-by-family basis. This provides an important source of information for species conservation and the identification of centres of biodiversity for the region. The first of these checklists, Preliminary List of Rubiaceae in Northeastern Brazil, was published in 2002. This was followed by the Leguminosae checklist published in 2006. Other family checklists (e.g. Compositae and Eriocaulaceae) are nearing completion.
Outside Brazil, significant floristic outputs have included a new edition of the Tropical Tree Flora of Mexico (Arboles Tropicales de Mexico) and the Illustrated Guide to the Trees of Peru. The latter, produced in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh and Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (Peru), was one of the principal outputs from the Tree Flora of Peru project (supported by the Darwin Initiative).
Other major taxonomic contributions produced during the past five years have largely been the product of Kew’s ongoing family-focused projects (Compositae of Brazil, Rubiaceae of Brazil, Diversity of Neotropical Meliaceae, Diversity of Neotropical Sapotaceae) and the research of individual specialists. These have included a number of taxonomic accounts and revisions, at various levels of coverage ranging from regional (Guianas, Venezuelan Guayana), through to national (e.g. Nicaragua), to state (São Paulo) and local area (Grão-Mogol).
Our long-standing collaborative links with Tropical American universities, particularly in Brazil, combined with the financial support and associated technical guidance provided through the KLARF and Margaret Mee Fellowship programmes, have resulted in a very significant contribution to the training of young botanists.
Comparative Plant Biology (2001-2005)
Kew scientists have been working in collaboration with a number of Latin American researchers on the development of comparative plant biology research. Following a pioneering species inventory of the Brejo forests of Pernambuco (through a partnership between PNE and the Darwin Initiative), Simon Mayo and Ivanilza Andrade initiated the first ever comparative genetic and morphometric study of selected groups in the Brejo forests of Ceará in 2002. The project was formally set up as Andrade’s PhD thesis project at State University of Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil (UEFS).
In Araceae, Eduardo Gonçalves completed his PhD (Systematics of the tribe Spathicarpeae; University of São Paulo, Brazil) in 2002, co-supervised by Simon Mayo. This included a molecular analysis and an exceptionally thorough field exploration and morphological study of these often very rare endemic South American taxa. A Margaret Mee Fellowship awarded in 2002 enabled him to visit European herbaria and make key personal contacts with other specialists, which have led to much new collaborative work.
In Myrtaceae, detailed collaborative work within subtribe Myrciinae has been carried out in collaboration with the University of Campinas (Brazil), resulting in the sequencing of c. 20 additional species for three of four gene regions under study. A collaborative programme with the University of São Paulo (Brazil), aiming to resolve generic/infrageneric relationships in subtribe Eugeniinae, was commenced in 2003. This study has sequenced a further c. 60 Eugenia and Eugeniinae species for the same three gene regions as above.
Sustainable Utilisation of Plant Resources (2001-2005)
Kew is making a direct contribution to sustainable utilisation of critical plant resources through its Sustainable Management of Fuelwood Trees in the Caatinga of Northeast Brazil project, developed in collaboration with Associação Plantas do Nordeste (APNE). The project aims to facilitate better management of native caatinga (dry forest) trees used by local people for fuel. Specifically, it is working to determine which of a series of harvesting techniques (cropping, pollarding and crown thinning) is most appropriate for each species, providing optimum, sustainable returns of wood suitable for fuel and charcoal production. Two experimental sites were established in 2001, and a total of 5,280 trees of four species (Caesalpinia pyramidalis, Croton sonderianus, Mimosa tenuiflora and M. ophthalmocentra) were surveyed and subsequently subjected to the different treatments during the wet and dry seasons of 2002. Wood samples from each species, taken during harvesting/monitoring, have been subjected to anatomical studies at the Jodrell Laboratory by a visiting Brazilian PhD student, and the sites have been re-measured and sampled annually. Results obtained to date have provided initial indications of appropriate management regimes for each species, but further research is needed before final conclusions can be reached. The project has been extended until 2008 (see Future work).
Kew’s Plant Information for Northeast Brazil project has been working to promote sustainable utilisation of plant resources through the development of PNE’s IDT sub-programme (1999-2004). The project’s main purpose was to support the sustainable use and conservation of the native plants by creating an information infrastructure capable of bringing together existing scientific knowledge of biodiversity and delivering demand-led information services to individuals, communities, development organisations and scientists.
Project outputs included infrastructure development of the Information Centre for Plants of the Northeast (CNIP), technical capacity building and training, establishment of a network of scientists and information providers in the region, and strengthening links between scientists, knowledge providers and representatives of user groups. Information developed by the project (which was funded by the Department for International Development) is available via a suite of online databases. These include a digital image library of plants and their uses, an internet service presenting complete plant profiles for species of greatest relevance to communities with whom the project worked, and a popular plant monograph series designed and produced for distribution and use within rural communities (medicinal plants, forage plants, important plants and native fruits).
Conservation and Environmental Monitoring (2001-2005)
Over the past five years, Kew’s taxonomic and floristic research in Tropical America has incorporated increasing numbers of species-focused conservation evaluations. The Cacti of Eastern Brazil project, for example, produced and published IUCN Red List conservation assessments for all 162 native species and subspecies, as well as recommendations for conservation action, protected areas and priorities for further study.
Kew staff have also been involved in the coordination of the Brazilian Red Data List (http:\\www.biodiversitas.org.br\index.asp), involving over 100 botanists from Brazil and elsewhere, and resulting in around 2,000 plant species listed using the IUCN criteria. This initiative will provide the Brazilian government with useful guidance regarding their national endangered flora and it is expected that, once included in such a list, the species will be prioritized for studies of distribution, biology and ecology, furthering their prospects for conservation.
Kew has also undertaken conservation assessments in areas affected by current or proposed industrial development, and in proposed protected areas. In 2004 a team of botanists from the Herbarium, working in collaboration with scientists and students from the University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria (EMBRAPA) and the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, coordinated the first detailed vegetation survey and mapping of the Morraria de Santa Cruz in SW Brazil. This mountain, rising from the edge of the internationally important Pantanal wetlands, is the site of a large and expanding iron ore mine owned by Mineração Corumbaense Reunida (MCR), a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, and supports a complex mixture of habitats including cliff vegetation, grassland, tree savanna (cerrado) and semi-deciduous forest.
The purpose of the survey was to provide important baseline information on the vegetation of the mountain, identify conservation priorities and provide recommendations to help minimise the impact of mine development and improve local capacity for restoration of damaged habitats. We have continued to work with conservation partners and the mine owners towards the implementation of these recommendations.