Ciência habilitada por dados de espécimes

Rodrigues, A. V., G. Nakamura, V. G. Staggemeier, and L. Duarte. 2022. Species misidentification affects biodiversity metrics: Dealing with this issue using the new R package naturaList. Ecological Informatics 69: 101625. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2022.101625

Biodiversity databases are increasingly available and have fostered accelerated advances in many disciplines within ecology and evolution. However, the quality of the evidence generated depends critically on the quality of the input data, and species misidentifications are present in virtually any o…

Dantas, V. L., and J. G. Pausas. 2022. The legacy of the extinct Neotropical megafauna on plants and biomes. Nature Communications 13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27749-9

Large mammal herbivores are important drivers of plant evolution and vegetation patterns, but the extent to which plant trait and ecosystem geography currently reflect the historical distribution of extinct megafauna is unknown. We address this question for South and Central America (Neotropical bio…

Freitas, C., F. T. Brum, C. Cássia-Silva, L. Maracahipes, M. B. Carlucci, R. G. Collevatti, and C. D. Bacon. 2021. Incongruent Spatial Distribution of Taxonomic, Phylogenetic, and Functional Diversity in Neotropical Cocosoid Palms. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.739468

Biodiversity can be quantified by taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity. Current evidence points to a lack of congruence between the spatial distribution of these facets due to evolutionary and ecological constraints. A lack of congruence is especially evident between phylogenetic and ta…

Beaulieu, W. T., D. G. Panaccione, Q. N. Quach, K. L. Smoot, and K. Clay. 2021. Diversification of ergot alkaloids and heritable fungal symbionts in morning glories. Communications Biology 4. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02870-z

Heritable microorganisms play critical roles in life cycles of many macro-organisms but their prevalence and functional roles are unknown for most plants. Bioactive ergot alkaloids produced by heritable Periglandula fungi occur in some morning glories (Convolvulaceae), similar to ergot alkaloids in …

Xue, T., S. R. Gadagkar, T. P. Albright, X. Yang, J. Li, C. Xia, J. Wu, and S. Yu. 2021. Prioritizing conservation of biodiversity in an alpine region: Distribution pattern and conservation status of seed plants in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Global Ecology and Conservation 32: e01885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01885

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) harbors abundant and diverse plant life owing to its high habitat heterogeneity. However, the distribution pattern of biodiversity hotspots and their conservation status remain unclear. Based on 148,283 high-resolution occurrence coordinates of 13,450 seed plants, w…

Tan, K., T. Lu, and M.-X. Ren. 2020. Biogeography and evolution of Asian Gesneriaceae based on updated taxonomy. PhytoKeys 157: 7–26. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.157.34032

Based on an updated taxonomy of Gesneriaceae, the biogeography and evolution of the Asian Gesneriaceae are outlined and discussed. Most of the Asian Gesneriaceae belongs to Didymocarpoideae, except Titanotrichum was recently moved into Gesnerioideae. Most basal taxa of the Asian Gesneriaceae are fou…

de Jesús Hernández-Hernández, M., J. A. Cruz, and C. Castañeda-Posadas. 2020. Paleoclimatic and vegetation reconstruction of the miocene southern Mexico using fossil flowers. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 104: 102827. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102827

Concern about the course of the current environmental problems has raised interest in investigating the different scenarios that have taken place in our planet throughout time. To that end, different methodologies have been employed in order to determine the different variables that compose the envi…

Bellot, S., R. P. Bayton, T. L. P. Couvreur, S. Dodsworth, W. L. Eiserhardt, M. S. Guignard, H. W. Pritchard, et al. 2020. On the origin of giant seeds: the macroevolution of the double coconut ( Lodoicea maldivica ) and its relatives (Borasseae, Arecaceae). New Phytologist 228: 1134–1148. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.16750

Seed size shapes plant evolution and ecosystems, and may be driven by plant size and architecture, dispersers, habitat and insularity. How these factors influence the evolution of giant seeds is unclear, as are the rate of evolution and the biogeographical consequences of giant seeds. We generated D…

Goodwin, Z. A., P. Muñoz-Rodríguez, D. J. Harris, T. Wells, J. R. I. Wood, D. Filer, and R. W. Scotland. 2020. How long does it take to discover a species? Systematics and Biodiversity 18: 784–793. https://doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2020.1751339

The description of a new species is a key step in cataloguing the World’s flora. However, this is only a preliminary stage in a long process of understanding what that species represents. We investigated how long the species discovery process takes by focusing on three key stages: 1, the collection …

Talhinhas, P. 2019. An annotated checklist of rust fungi (Pucciniales) occurring in Portugal. Sydowia An International Journal of Mycology 71: 65–84. https://doi.org/10.12905/0380.sydowia71-2019-0065

In this work we have retrieved and analysed data for 2319 occurrences of rust fungi from 246 Pucciniales taxa in Portugal based on 115 publications and our own surveys, totalizing 683 rust taxon-host taxon unique combinations. This list was updated according to current taxonomic framework and georef…