A new floristic atlas for the Southeast based on taxon concept relationships

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A new floristic atlas for the Southeast based on
taxon concept relationships
Robert K. Peet1, Alan S. Weakley1,2 Xianhua
Liu1,3 1The University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill 2The North Carolina Botanical Garden
3National Evolutionary Synthesis Center
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Radford, Ahles Bell 1968 Our History
Tradition
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• Why we need a new Atlas
• New names
• New taxon concepts (lumps splits)
• New discoveries
• Taxa new to science
• New collections overlooked collections
• New data sources (Plots, Heritage lists)
• New determinations

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• Challenges in creating a modern Southeastern
  floristic atlas
• Regional floras are generally obsolete and
  incomplete.
• Local atlases follow idiosyncratic taxonomies.
• Few museum collections have been databased.
• Museum collections are rarely determined to
  concept.
• Floristic lists and ecological datasets with
  multiple taxonomic authorities and inconsistent
  taxonomic concepts have defied integration.

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Three concepts of subalpine fir Splitting one
species into two illustrates the ambiguity often
associated with scientific names.
Abies bifolia
Abies lasiocarpa
Abies lasiocarpa
sec. Little sec. USDA PLANTS
sec. Flora North America
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One concept ofAbies lasiocarpa
USDA Plants ITIS Abies lasiocarpa var.
lasiocarpa var. arizonica
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A narrow concept of Abies lasiocarpa
Flora North America Abies lasiocarpa Abies
bifolia
Partnership with USDA plants to provide plant
concepts for data integration
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High-elevation fir trees of western North
America
AZ NM CO WY MT AB eBC wBC WA OR
Distribution
Abies lasiocarpa var. arizonica
Abies lasiocarpa var. lasiocarpa
USDA - ITIS
Abies lasiocarpa
Abies bifolia
Flora North America
A
B
C
Minimal concepts
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Andropogon virginicus complex in the Carolinas 9
elemental units 17 base concepts, 27 scientific
names
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• The good news
• Multiple organizations are developing tools for
  concept use and integration.
• The challenge
• Few large-scale compilations of concepts and
  their relationships are available.

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Massive Import

• Scanned indices -- OCR
• Spreadsheets for preliminary concept
  documentation
• Import into software tool for managing concepts
  and relationships

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Concept mapper
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• SE floristic works mapped
• Weakley 2005. Flora of the Carolinas, Virginia,
  Georgia, and Surrounding Areas
• Small 1933. Manual of the southeastern flora
• Fernald 1950. Gray's manual of botany
• Gleason 1952. Britton and Brown illustrated flora
  
• Radford, Ahles Bell 1968. Manual of the
  vascular flora of the Carolinas
• Gleason Cronquist 1991. Manual of vascular
  plants of northeastern United States and adjacent
  Canada
• 1993-2005. Flora of North America north of
  Mexico
• Kartesz 1999. A synonymized checklist for the
  vascular flora of the United States, Canada, and
  Greenland
• Wofford 1989. Vascular Plants of the Blue Ridge
• Godfrey Wooton 1979. Aquatic and Wetland Plants
  of Southeastern United States
• 1980-1990. Vascular Flora of the Southeastern
  United States
• Recent monographs and revisions (gt2000)

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Concept mapping progress

• 65000 relationships of taxon concepts to
  Weakley 2005 concepts
• Based on 800 taxonomic references.

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Toward a new Atlas
http//herbarium.unc.edu/seflora/firstviewer.htm
How to integrate new sources of data??
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis, Radford et al.
1968
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Add dynamic access to NCU collection
NCU RAB
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis
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Add USDA PLANTS records CVS vegetation plot
data
NCU RAB USDA CVS
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis
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But wait !!There is a concept issue

• According to Radford 1968, USDA PLANTS v 4.0,
  Weakley 2005
• Carya carolinae-septentrionalis
• Carya ovata
• According to Stone 1997 in FNA
• Carya ovata var australis
• Carya ovata var. ovata

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Some nominal occurrences might or might not
represent the taxon
Carya carolinae-septentrionalis
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All specimens of Carya ovata must be identified
to nominal concepts
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Consider Cleistes

• Cleistes bifaria was split off C. divaricata
  after Radford et al. was published.
• Radford et al. records must be mapped as
  ambiguous.
• Kartesz incorrectly maps all Cleistes in the
  Carolinas as C. divaricata owing to uncritical
  import of records from Radford.

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Data layers

• Specimens
• NCU (8,0000 - nominal)
• NCSU (nominal)
• Weymouth Woods (2000 - Weakley)
• UNCC (in process, 43,000 - Weakley)
• High-quality databases
• Sorries SE Costal Plain endemics (Weakley)
• NC Natural Heritage Program (Weakley)
• Harmon et al. 2006 West Virginia atlas (US)
• Selected literature records (idiosyncratic)

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Data layers 2

• Other databases
• Radford et al. (Radford)
• USDA PLANTS (US)
• Site records
• Carolina Vegetation Survey (300,000)
• Total county records in database 1,500,000

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Specimens matching the name
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• ..\..\New Folder\Snap32.jpg

Images matching the name
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Community types with the concept
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Link to Vegetation plots with the taxon
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Next steps?

• Design
• Allow user to select date-specific version of
  Weakley.
• Allow user to select a Weakley, PLANTS, or FNA
  perspective (or others?).
• Data needs
• Map relationships to PLANTS v 4.0
• Map relationships between PLANTS and FNA
• Date-stamp changes in Weakley
• More distribution layers

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Links

• ConceptMapper
• http//152.2.14.231/conceptmapper/
• Weakley flora
• http//herbarium.unc.edu/flora.htm
• NCU Atlas of the SE flora
• http//herbarium.unc.edu/seflora/firstviewer.htm
• Thanks
• NSF (SEEK, VegBank), NC Bot. Garden