Towards Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation : a working list of all known plant species-progress and prospects

By Alan Paton, N. Brummitt, R. Govaerts, K. Harman, S. Hinchcliffe, B. Allkin, Eimear Nic Lughadha. 2008

176 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) is, "a widely accessible working list of all known plant species, as a step towards a complete world Flora". This paper discusses the importance of the Target to the GSPC itself, to many sectors of science and society, and to decision makers. It then examines the progress made to date and prospects for the Target's completion. Good progress has been made in bryophytes, ferns and gymnosperms with widely accessible working lists either complete or almost so for these groups. Online working lists are available for around 50% of flowering plants. In all, Target 1 is around 53% complete. It is estimated that there are around 352,000 flowering plants and that the current gap in online coverage is around 177,000 species. The major families constituting the gap are identified, the four largest being Apocynaceae, Malvaceae, Ericaceae and Apiaceae. The large majority of families for which there is no working list available are either cosmopolitan or pantropical in distribution. However, progress to date suggests that neither broad distribution nor large numbers of species in a family are insurmountable problems in compiling working lists. The major barrier to completion of Target 1 remains the availability of taxonomists to contribute to the target. Completion of Target 1 by 2010 is possible if botanical institutions recognise the importance of the Target and collaborate, lever funding and prioritise activities appropriately.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e86b761acf60ab58743608d76f993e7823c5325b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Counting counts: revised estimates of numbers of accepted species of flowering plants, seed plants, vascular plants and land plants with a review of other recent estimates (2016, methodology): “REVISED ESTIMATES OF ACCEPTED SPECIES Phytotaxa 272 (1) © 2016 Magnolia Press • 85 Assumptions and differences in methodology Since our method has much in common with that of Paton et al. (2008), we outline the differences here before discussing our results in the context of theirs and those of othe”
Pollinator Diversity: Distribution, Ecological Function, and Conservation (2017, background): “In total we might expect there to be approximately 350,000 known species of pollinators servicing the approximately 352,000 species of flowering plants (Paton et al. 2008), an interesting (though purely coincidental) symmetry, as flowering plant diversity could be as high as 400,000, whereas the est”
Mapping the biosphere: exploring species to understand the origin, organization and sustainability of biodiversity (2012, background): “Plants are a good example of a taxon with a strong infrastructure and workforce, a solid foundation of knowledge on which to build, and species critical to the characterization of terrestrial ecosystems (Paton et al., 2008).”
World checklist of hornworts and liverworts (2016, background): “…other targets through provision of baseline information; (II) increasing the accessibility and use of accurate botanical name information for research, conservation and sustainable use; and (III) real-world politics and how taxonomists respond to the decisions of policy makers (Paton et al. 2008).”
A first comprehensive census of fungi in soil reveals both hyperdiversity and fine-scale niche partitioning (2014, methodology): “:P ratio is combined with the current estimate of vascular plant diversity of 352 000 (Paton et al. 2008), it would suggest a global fungal richness of 6 million species, as opposed to the 616 000 recently suggested by Mora et al. (2011).”
The fungi: 1, 2, 3 ... 5.1 million species? (2011, background): “Using present higher estimates of land plant numbers as somewhat under 400 000 species ( Paton et al., 2008 ; Joppa et al., 2010 ) fungal species numbers now are expected to outnumber land plants by as much as 10.6 : 1 based on O ' Brien et al. (2005) .”