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Biogeography and Conservation of Myrciinae (Myrtaceae)

Databasing and georeferencing Myrciinae specimens for mapping

A major corporate goal for the Herbarium is to database and image herbarium specimens with a view to electronic provision of type information for the whole herbarium and the eventual cataloguing of all of its specimens, allowing specimen data to become more accessible to a wider range of stakeholders.

The research of the Myrtaceae staff in the Herbarium is focused on four core genera which make up one of three traditionally recognised subtribes of tribe Myrteae sensu Wilson et al. (2005), the Myrciinae. These genera are Myrcia, Calyptranthes, Marlierea and Gomidesia. Species diversity in the Myrciinae peaks in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest and cerrado (Myrcia, Marlierea, Gomidesia), the Amazon (Marlierea) and the Caribbean (Calyptranthes), habitats disappearing rapidly under human pressure.

A core fields compliant Myrciinae specimen database has been developed which to date comprises c.6,000 new, georeferenced records, with type specimens being imaged and databased. Kew’s Myrtaceae collection is particularly rich in Brazilian material and in order to obtain more even coverage of Eastern South American and Amazonian data, Myrciinae specimen datasets from the New York Botanical Garden and the Research Institute for Development – French Guiana have been merged with the Kew database. It is anticipated that the complete database will contain some 10,000 records representing 5-6,000 collections once duplicate records are removed.

The GIS part of this project is focused on the Atlantic rainforest/cerrado species. The Myrciinae database is being used to prepare GIS based distribution maps to identify which Myrciinae species occur in these biomes and preliminary conservation assessments will be generated for them, contributing to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, by working towards Target 2; A preliminary assessment of the conservation status of all known plant species, at national, regional and international levels. 

The diversity of the subtribe in these areas will be examined with two objectives: (1) to determine if Myrciinae biodiversity ‘hotspots’ exist and if these are correlated with the species hotspots of other plants (Prance, 1987) and other groups of organisms such as birds (Haffer, 1987), primates and forest butterflies;  (2) to assess the distribution of the subtribe for phytogeographically meaningful, yet phylogenetically independent areas of endemism for use in biogeographical studies on the subtribe.

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