This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| African Plant Database | |
|---|---|
| Name | African Plant Database |
| Country | Belgium |
| Established | 1995 |
| Languages | French; English |
| Discipline | Botany |
African Plant Database The African Plant Database is an authoritative online taxonomic resource documenting vascular plants of continental Africa and nearby islands. It serves botanists, conservationists, herbaria and policy makers by compiling nomenclature, distribution and synonymy data for taxa across regions such as Madagascar, São Tomé and Príncipe, Comoros and Mascarene Islands. The project integrates contributions from institutions including the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève and the Meise Botanic Garden.
The database functions as a curated checklist and taxonomic backbone used by repositories like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and programs such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. It aggregates specimen-based records linked to major herbaria including the Herbarium Berolinense, the National Herbarium of the Netherlands, the South African National Biodiversity Institute and the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. Users access standardized names, basionyms and publication citations drawn from sources like the International Plant Names Index and the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.
Initiated in the mid-1990s with support from Belgian and Swiss botanical institutions, the project built upon legacy floristic works such as the flora treatments of Hermann Harms, Hans Schinz and editions of the Flora Zambesiaca. Early development involved digitisation efforts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and specimen databasing inspired by initiatives at the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Natural History Museum, London. Subsequent phases included integration of taxonomic revisions by authors associated with journals like Taxon and Kew Bulletin and cooperation with regional projects such as the Flora of Tropical East Africa.
Coverage encompasses vascular plants across continental Africa and adjacent islands, with taxonomic breadth spanning families treated in works such as Genera Plantarum and contemporary revisions in publications from the African Journal of Ecology and Phytotaxa. Geographic granularity follows political boundaries including Kenya, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and island states like Madagascar and Mauritius. The dataset records accepted names, synonyms, type citations and country-level distribution aligned with datasets used by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and conservation assessments by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Primary inputs derive from herbarium specimens curated at institutions such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Meise Botanic Garden, the National Museums of Kenya and the South African National Biodiversity Institute. Nomenclatural decisions reference standards from the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants and bibliographic resources like the International Plant Names Index and literature from the Royal Society. Taxonomic vetting involves specialists who publish in outlets such as Blumea, Plant Systematics and Evolution and Adansonia; georeferenced occurrences are validated against shapefiles used by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and national checklists maintained by ministries in South Africa and Mozambique.
The interface enables queries for scientific names, authorities and distribution; it interoperates with data aggregators like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Catalogue of Life. Tools support export of checklists used in assessments for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and in conservation planning by organizations such as BirdLife International and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Metadata conform to standards promoted by the Integrated Publishing Toolkit and linked-data practices advocated by the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) community.
The project is a collaboration among botanical gardens and herbaria including the Meise Botanic Garden, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Partnerships extend to research networks like the African Plants Initiative and the Network for Conservation of Medicinal Plants; capacity-building has been supported by funders such as the European Union and agencies like the Belgian Development Cooperation. Data exchange occurs with global infrastructures including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Catalogue of Life.
The database underpins floristic research cited in journals such as Kew Bulletin and Biological Conservation, informs national red-listing exercises for countries like South Africa and Kenya, and supports ecological modeling used by groups including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It has been cited in monographs on regional floras, conservation action plans by IUCN specialist groups, and in biodiversity informatics projects at institutions such as the Natural History Museum, London and the Missouri Botanical Garden. Researchers, conservation practitioners and policymakers rely on its standardized taxonomy for herbarium curation, environmental impact assessments and restoration planning across Africa.
Category:Botanical databases Category:Flora of Africa