HERBase: A collection of understorey herb vegetation plots from Amazonia

Abstract

Understorey herbs form a diverse and understudied plant assemblage in tropical forests. Although several studies and research teams have long been dedicated to the study of this conspicuous vegetation component in Amazonia, no effort to unify the data has been undertaken to date. In contrast to trees and other life forms for which major data compilations already exist, a unified database dedicated to herbs is still lacking. Part of the problem is in defining what is a herb and how to effectively sample herb assemblages. In this article, we describe the database HERBase, an exhaustive compilation of published and unpublished data on herb inventories in Amazonia. We also describe the structure, functioning, and guidelines for data curation and integration in HERBase. We were able to compile information from 1381 plots from all six Amazonian geographic regions. Based on this dataset, we describe and discuss sampling and knowledge gaps, priority areas for new collections, and recommend sampling protocols to facilitate data integration in the future. This novel database provides a unique biodiversity data repository on understorey herbs that will enable new studies on community ecology and biogeography.

Diversity and composition of ferns and lycophytes in a fragmented landscape in Ecuadorian Amazonia

“…All plots were installed with previous authorization from landowners. The data gathered during this study is stored in the HERBase repository (André et al 2023).…”

“…Rodriguésia 74: e00592023. 2023 deforestation rates in Ecuadorian Amazonia (Kleemann et al 2022) and those areas constitute gaps in fern collections (André et al 2023). In this study, we describe the patterns of floristic diversity of ferns in thirteen plots distributed in a fragmented landscape in Amazonian Ecuador, in the municipality of Shushufindi, Sucumbíos Province.…”