The Pteridaceae family diversity in Togo

Abstract

BackgroundThe Pteridaceae family is the largest fern family in Togo by its specific and generic diversity. Like all other families of ferns in the country, Pteridaceae are poorly studied and has no identification key. The objective of this study is to perform a taxonomic revision and list establishment of this family of leptosporangiate ferns in the light of current available knowledge about the family. Pteridaceae was also assessed in terms of its diversity and conservation status, this was conducted through the recent field data and the existing herbaria specimens. The current study permits to confirm the presence of Pteris similis Kuhn. which brought the number of Pteridaceae to 17 in Togo.New informationThis study provides first local scientific information about the fern flora of Togo. It confirmed the presence of Pteris similis Kuhn. in Togo and brought the Pteridaceae family diversity to 17 species. A species identification key is provided for the easy identification of the Pteridaceae of Togo.

A first checklist of the Pteridophytes of Togo (West Africa)

“…With a diversity now estimated at 134 species including 12 exotics, the present study provides the first checklist of Togolese Pteridophytes based on an integrative approach combining newly collected specimens and data from the literature, mostly by Alston (1959) , Roux (2009) and Abotsi et al (2015) . The checklist for the country is consequently complemented by 12 exotic species and 61 spontaneous species.…”

“…The collected specimens were studied on the basis of morphological characters (vegetative and reproductive), adapted from the list of descriptors proposed by Abotsi et al (2015) for the Pteridaceae family. Information on the ecology and geographical distribution has been reported directly in the field.…”

“…Nevertheless, apart from the works of Alston (1959) , Roux (2009) and Abotsi et al (2015) , no other published taxonomic paper for Pteridophytes is available for the country. Moreover, those studies are still partial and cannot provide currently sufficient knowledge on the country.…”

Exploring the pteridophyte flora of the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot

“…In general, Roux () estimates were found to be rather consistent with species numbers assessed in recently published floras (see Table ) but some exceptions may be important to note such as the increase of the species diversity reported by Antheme et al () for the nations involving mountains located in the Sahara. Another notable difference is the number of pteridophyte taxa assessed for Togo ranging from 54 (Roux, ), 55 (Roux, plus Abotsi et al, ) to even 129 (Fousseni et al, ). Beside these “traditional” resources, we explored the evidence for pteridophyte occurrences via the global biodiversity information facility (GBIF; http://www.gbif.org).…”

“…Roux's assessment is a unique resource of the highest quality but the species diversity of Africa is still not as well known as some floras in temperate regions. Thus, we took into account recent reports of new species or occurrences of fern and lycophyte species published since Roux (2009) such as a compilation of Pteridaceae of Togo (Abotsi et al, 2015), ferns from the Saharan Mountains (Antheme et al, 2011), invasion of South Africa by the water fern Azolla Lam. (Madeira et al, 2016), pteridophytes of Madagascar (Rakotondrainibe & Jouy, 2016a, 2016b, or various taxonomic revisions, new species descriptions, or new records (e.g., Fischer et al, 2010;Roux, 2011Roux, , 2012Hemp, 2012;Dubuisson et al, 2013Dubuisson et al, , 2016Schwartzburd & Prado, 2014;Jongkind & de Winter, 2015;Widen et al, 2015).…”