A5028336217- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Plant and animal studies
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Invertebrate Taxonomy and Ecology
- Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions
- Plant Pathogens and Fungal Diseases
- Cassava research and cyanide
- Agricultural Innovations and Practices
- Remote Sensing in Agriculture
- Banana Cultivation and Research
- Plant biochemistry and biosynthesis
- Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies
- Plant Parasitism and Resistance
- Genetic and Environmental Crop Studies
- Marine and environmental studies
- Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Plant Reproductive Biology
- Agriculture and Rural Development Research
- Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology and Behavior
- Fungal Biology and Applications
- International Maritime Law Issues
- Economic and Environmental Valuation
- Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Forest Ecology and Conservation
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
2019-2024
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
2023-2024
Societal Impact Statement Biodiversity is essential to food security and nutrition locally globally. By reviewing the global state of edible plants highlighting key neglected underutilized species (NUS), we attempt unlock plant resources explore role fungi, which along with wealth traditional knowledge about their uses practices, could help support sustainable agriculture while ensuring better protection environment continued delivery its ecosystem services. This work will inform a wide...
The World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) is an extremely valuable resource that being used to address many fundamental and applied questions in plant science, conservation, ecology evolution. However, databases this size require data manipulation skills pose a barrier potential users. Here, we present rWCVP, open-source R package aims facilitate the use WCVP by providing clear, intuitive functions execute common tasks. These include taxonomic name reconciliation, geospatial integration,...
Plants sustain human life. Understanding geographic patterns of the diversity species used by people is thus essential for sustainable management plant resources. Here, we investigate global distribution 35,687 utilized spanning 10 use categories (e.g., food, medicine, material). Our findings indicate general concordance between and total diversity, supporting potential simultaneously conserving its contributions to people. Although Indigenous lands across Mesoamerica, Horn Africa, Southern...
Summary More than 15% of all vascular plant species may remain scientifically undescribed, and many the > 350 000 described have no or few geographic records documenting their distribution. Identifying understanding taxonomic knowledge shortfalls is key to prioritising future collection conservation efforts. Using extensive data for 343 523 time‐to‐event analyses, we conducted multiple tests related shortfalls, identified 33 global diversity darkspots (those ‘botanical countries’...
Phytosterols are primary plant metabolites that have fundamental structural and regulatory functions. They also essential nutrients for phytophagous insects, including pollinators, cannot synthesize sterols. Despite the well-described composition diversity in vegetative tissues, few studies examined phytosterol pollen. We quantified 25 pollen phytosterols 122 species (105 genera, 51 families) to determine their across taxa. searched literature databases phylogeny, environmental conditions,...
Plants are essential to human wellbeing, supporting important ecosystem services that critical components of Natural Capital. They supply food, medicine, fibre, fuel and building materials, provide a broad spectrum benefits society, offering vital solutions some the world’s major challenges, including bioenergy, animal health, nutrition, microbial resistance, industrial biotechnology, synthetic biology. In 2016, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew published first State World's report, with key...
Summary paragraph To meet the ambitious objectives of biodiversity and climate conventions, countries international community require clarity on how these can be operationalized spatially, multiple targets pursued concurrently 1 . support governments political spatial guidance is needed to identify which areas should managed for conservation generate greatest synergies between nature’s contribution people (NCP). Here we present results from a joint optimization that maximizes improvements in...
Summary More than 15% of all vascular plant species may remain scientifically undescribed, and many the >340,000 described have no or few geographic records documenting their distribution. Identifying understanding taxonomic knowledge shortfalls is key to prioritising future collection conservation efforts. Using extensive data for 343,523 time-to-event analyses, we conducted multiple tests related shortfalls, identified 32 global diversity darkspots (regions predicted lack most...
Societal Impact Statement Biological samples and their associated information are an essential resource used by scientists, governments, policymakers, practitioners communities to ensure that biodiversity can be appropriately protected sustainably used. Yet, considering the enormous task of documenting vast numbers as‐yet‐unknown plant fungal species, greater international coordination for biological collecting recording is necessary, built on equitable practices standards. Here, we propose...
Abstract Despite substantial growth in global agricultural production, food and nutritional insecurity is rising Sub-Saharan Africa. Identification of underutilised indigenous crops with useful security traits may provide part the solution. Enset ( Ensete ventricosum ) a perennial banana relative cultivation restricted to southwestern Ethiopia, where high productivity harvest flexibility enables it starch staple for ∼20 million people. An extensive wild distribution suggests that much larger...
Societal Impact Statement Bioenergy is a major component of the global transition to renewable energy technologies. The plant and fungal kingdoms offer great potential but remain mostly untapped. Their increased use could contribute addressing United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 “Ensure access affordable, reliable, sustainable modern for all.” Current research focuses on species cultivated at scale in temperate regions, overlooking wealth new sources small‐scale where they are most...
Drylands represent about 41% of Earth’s land area, host more than 1,500 tree species and support 20% the world’s human population. Trees are key to functioning numerous dryland ecosystems contribute goods services for many local communities, but threatened by global changes. From this perspective, mapping assemblages drylands can provide valuable information conservation. To our knowledge, warm drylands, including hot deserts, have never been subject a comprehensive biodiversity analysis...
Plants are a rich source of bioactive compounds and number plant-derived antiplasmodial have been developed into pharmaceutical drugs for the prevention treatment malaria, major public health challenge. However, identifying plants with potential can be time-consuming costly. One approach selecting to investigate is based on ethnobotanical knowledge which, though having provided some successes, restricted relatively small group plant species. Machine learning, incorporating trait data,...
The field of distributional ecology has seen considerable recent attention, particularly surrounding the theory, protocols, and tools for Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) or Species Distribution (SDM). Such analyses have grown steadily over past two decades—including a maturation relevant theory key concepts—but methodological consensus yet to be reached. In response, following an online course taught in Spanish 2018, we designed comprehensive English-language covering much underlying methods...
The increasing online availability of biodiversity data and advances in ecological modeling have led to a proliferation open‐source tools. In particular, R packages for species distribution continue multiply without guidance on how they can be employed together, resulting high fidelity researchers one or several packages. Here, we assess the wide variety software models (SDMs) highlight work together diversify expand analyses each step workflow. We also introduce new package ‘sdmverse'...
Abstract Mapping the distribution of crop pests and pathogens is essential to safeguard food security sustainable livelihoods. However, these data are unavailable for many neglected underutilised crops, particularly in developing countries. In Ethiopia, world’s largest historic recipient aid, indigenous banana relative enset ( Ensete ventricosum ) threatened by multiple whilst providing staple starch source 20 million people. Foremost among Xanthomonas Wilt (EXW), caused vasicola pv....