Drylands: Tropical America
Future Plans
Collections (2006 onwards)
Our plans for the next five years maintain a strong focus on improving access to our collections. We are currently developing a new programme for databasing and imaging all our Latin American type specimens, the Latin American Plants Initiative (LAPI). This will be a major undertaking, necessitating the development of revised systems for data and image management. The outputs will be made available, as interactive databases with images, via the internet.
In parallel with this, we will continue to facilitate physical access to the collections through further development of Kew Latin America Research Fellowships (KLARF). Priorities for this programme include strengthening its contribution to our baseline plant diversity research through improved alignment of fellowships with Kew’s areas of research, and broadening the geographical range of its impact. The most significant funding resource for this programme (donated by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) was fully committed in March 2006, and we are currently seeking additional funds for its replacement. The Margaret Mee Fellowship Programme, which until recently funded short-term research fellowships for Brazilian scientists, will from henceforth be restricted to supporting scholarships for botanical artists.
We will continue to improve our holdings of Tropical American herbarium material through joint specimen collection of target families (notably Myrtaceae, Rubiaceae, Compositae, Cactaceae, Leguminosae, and Araceae), general collecting undertaken in the context of our conservation-focused programmes, and exchange with overseas herbaria.
Kew's family specialists will carry out authoritative naming of specimens from the target area, and research institutions will continue to receive expert advice from Kew botanists (supported by Conventions and Policy Section, CAPS) on the preparation and use of Material Transfer Agreements, Collections Policy and other pertinent CBD-related matters. The programme will provide high quality support for visitors, focusing on researchers and postgraduate students, furthering capacity building and the enhancement of the quality of our own collections.
Baseline Plant Diversity Research (2006 onwards)
Baseline plant diversity research will maintain a strategic focus on the families for which Kew has strong specialist taxonomic expertise. Building on the achievements of the Repatriation of Herbarium Data for Northeastern Brazil project, we will produce preliminary checklists for the Myrtaceae, Bromeliaceae, Cyperaceae, Compositae and Orchidaceae of Northeast Brazil, and a checklist of the Compositae of Bahia. We will continue research on the Rubiaceae and Myrtaceae for the Flora of Bahia.
The Diversity of Neotropical Meliaceae and Diversity of Neotropical Sapotaceae projects will continue to advance baseline knowledge of these families through a revised account of the Sapotaceae for Flora Neotropica, Flora of Ecuador and the Flora of the Guianas, and completed revisions of the genera Trichilia and Ruagea (Meliaceae). The Rubiaceae of Brazil project will continue work on selected genera, including revisions of Faramea, Mitracarpus and Rudgea. Other taxonomic work will include taxonomic publications on the genus Doryopteris (Pteridophyta), and new species descriptions of Microlicia (Melastomataceae).
Building on Kew’s successful production of an Interactive Key to the Malesian Seed Plants, and drawing on the lessons learned by that project, we will complete the development and dissemination of an Interactive Key to Neotropical Flowering Plant Families. The key, produced with LUCID 3 software, will be made available online at no charge via Kew's website and on CD-ROM. Plant families included in the key (natives and non-natives) will be linked to a series of dedicated, web-based information resources including descriptions and synopses, images, glossaries etc. This is a collaborative project involving a range of international taxonomic specialists.
Comparative Plant Biology (2006 onwards)
We shall continue to work on developing understanding within key taxonomic groups in Tropical America, including Rubiaceae, Araceae, Cyperaceae, Myrteae, Sapotaceae and Meliaceae (Cedrela). Within Rubiaceae, the systematics of the genera Faramea and Mitracarpus are subject to continuing PhD studies at the University of Feira de Santana, Bahia. Through these collaborative projects we aim to establish their position within the family and improve subgeneric delimitation by association between molecular systematics and morphology.
Ongoing studies of Neotropical Myrtaceae will also be further developed. A robust phylogeny of Myrciinae will be generated in collaboration with Kazue Matsumoto (University of Campinas), based on morphological and molecular characters. Character evolution in the subtribe will be examined and a new infrageneric classification of the Myrciinae will be produced. A generic revision of the subtribe Myrciinae will be based on the above data, and a phylogenetic study of Eugenia and subtribe Eugeniinae based on three genes will be published with Fiorella Mazine (University of São Paulo).
Sustainable Utilisation of Plant Resources (2006 onwards)
The Sustainable Management of Fuelwood Trees in the Caatinga of Northeast Brazil project has been extended until 2008, in order to maximise the practical relevance and impact of its outputs. This will allow longer-term monitoring of the re-growth of the experimental plots, and development of stronger recommendations for management of the most important firewood trees in the caatinga. Following the final harvest in 2008, the results will be presented in a range of formats including community workshops, local-language information resources and scientific publications, and be submitted in part fulfilment of a PhD by Brazilian Lazaro Benedito da Silva.
Kew’s emerging initiatives for sustainable plant utilisation in Tropical America are strategically aligned to the development of in situ and ex situ conservation projects. In Peru, for example, the Habitat Restoration and Sustainable Use of Southern Peruvian Dry Forest project will work with local communities to develop sustainable use of non-timber forest products from remaining fragments of Huarango (Prosopis) dry forests, in parallel with the establishment of protected areas and the development of reforestation projects on the margins of these forest areas.
Conservation and Environmental Monitoring (2006 onwards)
Development of Kew’s applied role in conservation and environmental monitoring in Tropical America will form a major part of our work over the coming five years. In Brazil, working with our local and international partners, the Vegetation Management for Conservation, Brazil project will continue to provide facilitation, capacity building and technical support for conservation management. In Mato Grosso do Sul we will continue to work through our partnership programme with Rio Tinto to develop and implement vegetation management and conservation strategies designed to offset the impact of mine development on the Morraria de Santa Cruz and surrounding area (see Achievements). The second focus of this project is the Cristalino State Park in northern Mato Grosso, and the adjacent private nature reserve Reserva Privada de Patrimônio Nacional (RPPN) recently established by the Cristalino Ecological Foundation. We will work with the Foundation and other local partners to develop management plans for both reserves, building local capacity for conservation management, botanical research and environmental education. Activities will include collaborative vegetation survey and inventory, conservation evaluation, training and the development of education resources.
We plan to broaden the geographical impact of this project between 2006 and 2011 through the development of additional partnerships with private landowners, focusing primarily on dry and semi-arid ecosystems. One potential target area (of cerrado and campo rupestre vegetation) has been identified in the state of Minas Gerais, on the edge of the Serra de Espinhaço.
In Bolivia, the Plant Diversity and Conservation in Bolivia project will build on the achievements of a Darwin Initiative funded project that has been working to identify areas of high plant diversity and endemism, to develop a series of conservation-focused, collaborative initiatives in areas of botanical importance. Kew’s inputs will include baseline botanical surveys and conservation evaluation, development of information resources, training and institutional capacity building.
Another new conservation project, Habitat Restoration and Sustainable Use of Southern Peruvian Dry Forest, was launched in late 2005. This is focused on threatened dry forest and xerophytic ecosystems on the edge of the Atacama desert that provide essential environmental and economic resources in a region supporting over 680,000 people. In collaboration with governmental and non-governmental partners and local communities, the project will work to establish conservation areas and develop and demonstrate techniques for habitat restoration and regeneration using local species, and for sustainable production of economically viable products from Prosopis (huarango) pods. Dissemination and promotion of the uptake of research outcomes (including workshops and local-language manuals) will be achieved through involvement of local stakeholders at all stages, and integration with national development and conservation strategies and networks. Three-year support for this project (2006-2009) has been secured from the UK Darwin Initiative.
In order to maximise the conservation impact of our work, Kew’s taxonomic and floristic research programmes in Tropical America will work over the next five years to standardise the incorporation of species conservation evaluations into the research activities and outputs. This is already happening, but increased alignment of data collection and analysis methods with the data standards and requirements of the Geographic Information System (GIS) unit will help to achieve this objective. For example, all new descriptions of Tropical American Microlicia (Melastomataceae) species produced at Kew will include IUCN conservation assessments.