Combining botanical collections and ecological data to better describe plant community diversity

Abstract

In this age of rapid biodiversity loss, we must continue to refine our approaches to describing variation in life on Earth. Combining knowledge and research tools from multiple disciplines is one way to better describe complex natural systems. Understanding plant community diversity requires documenting both pattern and process. We must first know which species exist, and where (i.e., taxonomic and biogeographic patterns), before we can determine why they exist there (i.e., ecological and evolutionary processes). Floristic botanists often use collections-based approaches to elucidate biodiversity patterns, while plant ecologists use hypothesis-driven statistical approaches to describe underlying processes. Because of these different disciplinary histories and research goals, floristic botanists and plant ecologists often remain siloed in their work. Here, using a case study from an urban greenway in Colorado, USA, we illustrate that the collections-based, opportunistic sampling of floristic botanists is highly complementary to the transect- or plot-based sampling of plant ecologists. We found that floristic sampling captured a community species pool four times larger than that captured using ecological transects, with rarefaction and non-parametric species estimation indicating that it would be prohibitive to capture the “true” community species pool if constrained to sampling within transects. We further illustrate that the discrepancy in species pool size between approaches led to a different interpretation of the greenway’s ecological condition in some cases (e.g., transects missed uncommon cultivated species escaping from nearby gardens) but not others (e.g., plant species distributions among functional groups were similar between species pools). Finally, we show that while using transects to estimate plant relative abundances necessarily trades off with a fuller assessment of the species pool, it is an indispensable indicator of ecosystem health, as evidenced by three non-native grasses contributing to 50% of plant cover along the highly modified urban greenway. We suggest that actively fostering collaborations between floristic botanists and ecologists can create new insights into the maintenance of species diversity at the community scale.

Herbaria as Big Data Sources of Plant Traits

“…These "biases" are often intentional, with field botanists and ecologists often interested in different types of questions and use different methods of surveying or collecting (Alba et al 2021). While it is not possible to definitively know the motivation or sampling strategy of each collector, there are well-established approaches to address these potential biases (table 2).…”

“…My suggestions above are only just the start of a much larger conversation that is needed, one which should include a diversity of perspectives from inside and outside museum walls. Ecologists and taxonomists measure biological diversity in very different, but complementary, ways(Alba et al 2021). Similar to herbaria, living collections in botanical gardens have been shown to hold great promise as sources of trait data(Perez et al 2018) and these institutions should work together to advance functional trait ecology, with particular promise towards living collections providing material for herbarium trait protocol validations(Perez et al 2020).…”

Bryophyte Flora in Alpine Grasslands of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau Based on Plot Sampling

“…Different sampling methods influence the detection of biodiversity [30][31][32]. Chen et al [33] obtained the higher species richness of epiphytic bryophytes by using the PS method than by using the floristic habitat sampling (FHS) method.…”

Is the demise of plant taxonomy in sight? Maybe yes, maybe no…

“…It is unfortunate that in a world in which the loss of biodiversity has increased to alarming levels with limited mitigation proactive efforts, the value of biological collections has also been underestimated and their scientific meaning for understanding biodiversity undermined (Meineke et al 2018). However, several endeavors have been focused on the management, use and exploitation of the vast data stored in biological collections (Baldini and Guglielmone 2012;Rønsted et al 2020), including preserved specimens in herbaria and living material in botanical gardens, with ensuing digitalization and big data captured in online cyber portals and databases available on the Internet (Heberling and Isaac 2017;Soltis 2017;James et al 2018;Alba et al 2020;Miralles et al 2020;Paton et al 2020).…”