Tropicos

Tropicos
Name	Tropicos
Type	Botanical database
Owner	Missouri Botanical Garden
Launched	1999
Languages	English
Access	Public

Tropicos

Tropicos is an online botanical database maintained by the Missouri Botanical Garden that aggregates taxonomic names, specimen records, bibliographic citations and images for vascular plants and non-vascular taxa. It serves as a research resource for taxonomists, curators, conservationists and institutions including herbaria and universities, integrating data used by projects such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, International Plant Names Index and World Checklist initiatives. Researchers from institutions like Harvard University, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Smithsonian Institution and New York Botanical Garden frequently reference Tropicos datasets in floristic treatments, monographs and conservation assessments.

Overview

Tropicos provides nomenclatural authorities, synonymies, type specimen information and primary literature citations drawn from collections at the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium, Field Museum, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Herbarium, Harvard University Herbaria and numerous regional herbaria. Users can query taxon pages, view scanned images from expeditions by collectors such as Henry Walter Bates, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, and access distribution data linked to georeferenced specimens deposited at institutions like Instituto de Botánica Darwinion, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and National Herbarium of New South Wales. The platform interoperates with databases including International Plant Names Index, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, JSTOR Global Plants and Biodiversity Heritage Library, supporting citation in publications by authors affiliated with Cornell University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Oxford and University of São Paulo.

History and Development

The Missouri Botanical Garden initiated the Tropicos project to digitize specimen data and bibliographic records accumulated since the 19th century through expeditions supported by patrons like Henry Shaw and collaborations with botanists such as Benjamin Franklin Bush, William James Hooker and Adolpho Ducke. Early digitization efforts paralleled initiatives at institutions like Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Natural History Museum, London, and later integrated datasets from projects led by organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, United States National Herbarium and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Tropicos evolved alongside major digitization and informatics efforts including GBIF, IPNI and SiBBr, and its development benefited from grants and partnerships with agencies like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo and European Union research programs. Over time Tropicos incorporated linkages to publications indexed by Biodiversity Heritage Library, monographs authored by Carl Linnaeus, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and George Bentham, and floras such as Flora Brasiliensis and Flora Neotropica.

Coverage and Content

Content covers taxonomic treatments, accepted names and synonyms, holotype and isotype citations, collector names such as R. Spruce and C. Wright, collection dates, localities including Amazon Basin, Mata Atlântica, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest, and images of specimens and illustrations from works by John James Audubon, Ferdinand von Mueller and James Sowerby. Tropicos includes bibliographic entries for journals like Taxon, Brittonia, Phytotaxa, Systematic Botany and Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and cites monographs by authors such as Robert Brown, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Alphonse de Candolle and Henri Pittier. The database documents nomenclatural acts related to codes overseen by the International Botanical Congress and integrates conservation-relevant data cited in assessments by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and regional red lists compiled by institutions like Instituto Chico Mendes, CONABIO and NatureServe.

Data Access and Tools

Tropicos offers search interfaces for name search, specimen search and bibliographic search, and supports data export in formats compatible with Darwin Core, CSV and bibliographic software used in publications by editors at journals like Kew Bulletin, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society and American Journal of Botany. APIs and web services enable integration with platforms including GBIF, iNaturalist, Encyclopedia of Life and SpeciesLink, and facilitate specimen mapping with tools developed at institutions such as University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Minnesota and Yale Peabody Museum. Data feeds and interoperability protocols align with standards promoted by Taxonomic Databases Working Group, Catalogue of Life and Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), enabling researchers at museums, botanical gardens and universities to incorporate Tropicos records into taxonomic revisions, checklists and phylogenetic studies.

Partnerships and Use in Research

Tropicos data underpin floristic inventories and systematic revisions produced by researchers associated with institutions such as University of Campinas, University of Vienna, National Autonomous University of Mexico, University of Edinburgh and Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Collaborative projects have linked Tropicos records with molecular sequence databases maintained by GenBank and EMBL-EBI for integrative taxonomy and phylogeography, and with conservation planning undertaken by Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund. Large-scale syntheses such as regional floras, monographs published by Missouri Botanical Garden Press, and biodiversity atlases produced with partners including Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press and Springer frequently cite Tropicos as a primary data source.

Technical Infrastructure and Maintenance

The Missouri Botanical Garden maintains servers, databases and digitization workflows that leverage software and standards developed in part by teams at RBG Kew, Natural History Museum, London and University of California system. Database curation involves taxonomists, data managers and collection specialists who coordinate with herbaria such as Herbarium Berolinense, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for specimen loans, imaging and metadata exchange. Long-term preservation strategies reference best practices from organizations like LOCKSS, CLOCKSS and Portico, and data quality is improved through community annotation workflows similar to those used by JSTOR Global Plants, GBIF and iDigBio. Ongoing maintenance includes batch data ingests from partners, periodic software updates, and participation in international biodiversity informatics forums organized by TDWG and Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Category:Databases Category:Botanical databases Category:Missouri Botanical Garden