A National Forest Inventory (NFI) encompassing the entire territory of Brazil is in progress. It is coordinated and promoted by the Brazilian Forest Service of the Ministry of Environment. In each state, the NFI collaborates with local herbaria by receiving collected plant material and performing species identification. Consultants are hired by the NFI and work at the local herbaria under the supervision of a curator. In exchange for curatorial assistance, the NFI provides equipment and consumables for the herbarium. Other public projects collaborating with NFI are Reflora and the Brazilian Biodiversity Information System (SiBBr). Both projects have online platforms that seek to connect herbaria and make all their data freely available, including high quality digital images of specimens. Through inter-institutional collaboration, the joint interests of NFI, Reflora, SiBBr and local herbaria have improved collections, expanded the online Reflora database, and provided the NFI with verified species lists. These strategic uses of public funding are positively affecting Botany, particularly during a period of economic crisis and cuts in research. Here, we illustrate the increase in floristic knowledge through the improvement of a herbarium collection in Rio Grande do Norte (RN) – the Brazilian state with the lowest levels of plant richness. We report 71 new occurrences of vascular plants for RN, belonging mainly to the Poaceae, Fabaceae and Malvaceae. Most of the species with new occurrences have a Neotropical distribution (21 spp.) and only seven are restricted to the Brazilian Northeast. Our findings highlight previous gaps in RN’s floristic knowledge. The partnership NFI, Reflora, SiBBr and the UFRN herbarium improved herbarium curation, digital collection, and quality of data. Finally, a fellowship provided by Reflora and SiBBr allowed improving curation by distributing duplicates and incorporating the Herbarium of Câmara Cascudo Museum.

We documented the first reports of Ocelot, Leopardus pardalis (Linnaeus, 1758), in the Rio Grande do Norte state, northeastern Brazil. In December 2014, one adult male was road-killed in an Atlantic Forest remnant in São Gonçalo do Amarante municipality. Another three animals were killed by hunters in the Caatinga between 2012 and 2014, in the municipalities of Lajes and Santana do Matos. These records provide important information about the occurrence and distribution and conservation of this mesocarnivore in northeastern South America.

New occurrences of 10 species of angiosperms from Rio Grande do Norte state are reported. These data were collected by an environmental consultancy prior to the establishment of a wind farm. These records demonstrate the presence of knowledge gaps in the Caatinga flora of the state and show how an environmental consultancy can positively contribute towards the documentation of biodiversity in areas prior to their modification by human activities. In particular, at a time when the Brazilian Congress is discussing the elimination of environmental studies for licensing new developments, these new occurrence data highlight the importance of environmental studies.

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Abstract—“Plant blindness” is affecting humans’ relationships with plants, which has negative consequences for both science and conservation. It is, therefore, important to find new ways to promote societal interest in botany and plants. One possibility is encouraging the use of informal settings to promote curiosity and provide education to students. Forest fragments can be regarded as open air labs for teaching botany, especially on university campuses. We aimed to formally document the angiosperm diversity in the Mata dos Saguis (MS), a fragment of Atlantic forest under restoration belonging to the central campus of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Brazil. We recorded 140 species, 113 genera in 52 families, and 24 orders of angiosperms. The MS has nearly 10% of the species and one third of all the families occurring in the entire state of Rio Grande do Norte, representing the main evolutionary groups of angiosperms, and we also recorded two new species occurrences for the state. Here we provide a checklist of the MS, a location that has been used as an open-air laboratory by many UFRN undergraduate courses in biosciences. We also share examples that can be replicated in other institutions and discuss the process of learning systematic botany in floristically rich countries by means of alternative and hands-on experiences.