Database of poorly known endemic plants in the state of Minas Gerais,

Brazil

Nicole Correia de Barros

Heitor Lisboa da Fonseca

Elton John de Lírio

University of São Paulo

[email protected]

vouchers: Jabot (2023), speciesLink (2023),

Objectives JSTOR (2023) and GBIF (2023). If the
necessary information was not found or there
The objective of this study was to create a was dubious information, specialists were
database of Minas Gerais (MG) endemic plant contacted. In addition, the bibliography for the
species that are poorly known and do not have original work was obtained from Trópicos
geographical coordinates in virtual databases. (2023), using the oldest basionym as a
This database intends to provide information on reference.
the occurrence of these species in the state of
MG, and to contribute to conservation policies In species where the coordinate of origin was
and biogeographical studies. not available, a centroid referring to the
municipality was used. This data was obtained
Materials and Methods from the IBGE municipal grid using the QGIS
centroid function. The acronyms of the
The database was filtered from records in herbariums were obtained from Index
speciesLink (2023), GBIF (2023) and Flora e Herbariorum. In relation to the level of risk of
Funga do Brasil (Brazil Flora Group 2023), with extinction, the categories used come from the
around 250,000 records for MG. From the list of IUCN (2023). However, the assessment was
2,576 species with exclusive occurrence for the made using CNCflora (2023).
state of MG, according to Flora e Funga do
Brasil, we obtained 794 taxons for investigation Results
of occurrence.
The search resulted, preliminarily, in 684
Information such as collector, collection number species distributed in 79 families. The
and catalog number was used to search for Eriocaulaceae family had the largest number of
information on the occurrence on voucher species, accounting for 26% of the total, with
records in physical and virtual herbariums, as 178 spp. This was followed by Orchidaceae
well as scientific literature, original works and with 8.9% (58 spp.), Fabaceae (49 spp.),
type materials. The Flora e Funga do Brasil Bromeliaceae (39 spp.), Velloziaceae (34 spp.),
(Brazil Flora Group 2023) was also used to Asteraceae (33 spp.), Melastomataceae (30
confirm relevant data in the search. The spp.), Malvaceae (24 spp.) and Cactaceae (18
following databases were used to search for
spp.). The other families had less than 18 We would like to thank researcher Renato
species. Ramos for collaborating on the species data. To
the researchers from the Vale Institute of
In relation to the risk of extinction, it was Technology, Maurício Watanabe and Cecilio
observed that 588 species were not rated (NE), Caldeira for their support in coordinating the
43 were categorized with insufficient data (DD), project. Also, to the specialists who helped with
and 53 are under some level of threat: 24 as information on species: Paulo T. Sano, Cássio
critically endangered (CR), 25 as endangered Van den Berg, Valquíria Dutra, Guilherme
(EN) and 4 as vulnerable (VU). Antar, Maria A. D. de Souza, Luiz M. Neto,
José R. Pirani, Matheus Colli-Silva, Lilian
The records analyzed were collected by 181 Eggers, José Baumgratz, Jomar Jardim,
collectors, with A. A. Silveira being responsible Ricardo Pacifico, Rafael F. de Almeida, Livia
for the largest number of collections, with 106, Echternacht, Flávio F. do Carmo, Marcos
followed by A. F. M. Glaziou (44), C. F. P. von Sobral, Mario Gomes, Ricardo de S. Secco,
Martius (31), A. Saint-Hilaire (30) and L. Riedel Sue Zmarzty, Karin Geenen, Patrícia da Rosa,
(30). The oldest collection was made in 1821 George Azevedo, Vanessa Rivera, Viviane Y.
and the most recent in 2020. Finally, it was Jono, Peter Sack, Lúcio Leoni, Brazilian Journal
noted that approximately 58 species did not of Biology Team, Jimi N. Nakajima, Danielle de
have a location at municipal level. O. Diniz, Roxali Bijmoer, Diego R. Gonzaga,
Gustavo Heiden, Rodolfo de C. Pimentel,
Partial Conclusions Viviane Y. Jono, Rafaela C. Forzza, Luciano
Denardi and Carolina Siniscalchi.
The Eriocaulaceae family presented a
considerable scarcity of location data compared References
to the other families, which highlights the need
for a study to map it. Brazil Flora Group (2023). Brazilian Flora 2020
project - Projeto Flora do Brasil 2020. Instituto
Regarding the risk of extinction, it is de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de
hypothesized that the assessments may not Janeiro.
have been made because of the absence of Jabot-JBRJ (2023) Instituto de Pesquisas
information on the species, which makes Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro. Jabot -
categorization difficult or impossible. The lack of Banco de Dados da Flora Brasileira. URL:
extinction risk assessments of most of the http://www.jbrj.gov.br/jabot.
species analyzed reinforces the risk that these GBIF.org (2023). GBIF Home Page. URL:
populations are subjected to, and how essential https://www.gbif.org.
it is to demarcate their occurrences, so that speciesLink (2023) speciesLink network. URL:
classification can be made and conservation specieslink.net/search.
plans can be implemented. JSTOR (2023) JSTOR Global Plants. URL:
https://plants.jstor.org/.
The absense of information on the municipal Tropicos.org (2023). Missouri Botanical
location of some species reinforces the Garden. URL: https://tropicos.org.
importance of a more detailed study of their CNCflora (2023). Núcleo Lista Vermelha. URL:
place of occurrence, so that a more specific http://cncflora.jbrj.gov.br/portal/pt-
survey of floristic richness can be conducted. br/projetos/lista-vermelha. Accessed in 25
maio. 2023.
Acknowledgements IUCN (2023). The IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species. URL: https://www.iucnredlist.org.
Accessed in 25 maio. 2023.