FLOTROP, a massive contribution to plant diversity data for open ecosystems in northern tropical Africa

Simon Taugourdeau (1, 2) , Philippe Daget (3) , Cyrille Chatelain (4) , Daniel Mathieu (5) , Xavier Juanes (1) , Johann Huguenin (1) , Alexandre Ickowicz (1)

1 UMR SELMET - Systèmes d'élevage méditerranéens et tropicaux
2 Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement
3 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
4 CJBG - Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques de Genève
5 Tela Botanica

The FLOTROP dataset contains numerous plant observations (around 340,000 occurrences) in northern tropical Africa (from the 5th to 25th parallel north) in open ecosystems (savannah and steppe). They were collected by multiple collectors between 1920 and 2012 and were managed by Philippe Daget. These observations are probably the most important and unique source of plant distribution over the Sahel area. The data are now available in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Tela Botanica website, and as maps in the African Plant Database. For the overall area involved, this dataset has increased by 40% the data available in the GBIF. For some countries between the 15th and 21st parallel north, the FLOTROP dataset has increased available occurrences 10-fold compared to the data existing in the GBIF.

Mots clés: rangelands

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Simon Taugourdeau, Philippe Daget, Cyrille Chatelain, Daniel Mathieu, Xavier Juanes, et al.. FLOTROP, a massive contribution to plant diversity data for open ecosystems in northern tropical Africa. Scientific Data , 2019, 6 (1), 8 p. ⟨10.1038/s41597-019-0120-8⟩. ⟨hal-02268924⟩