[Taxacom] XTBG Field Botany Course - on behalf of Ferry Slik

[P.H. HOVENKAMP]

Plants of Tropical Asia – XTBG Field Botany Course 2013

Title: XTBG Field Botany Course 2013

Registration: Open. Application results will be announced in early March 2012.

Register online at: http://www.pfs-tropasia.org/



Type: Workshop

Venue: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (near Jinghong), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan, China

Dates: 04 April – 23 April 2013 (19 days)

Organiser: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Laboratory for Plant Geography, XTBG.

Teachers: Jim LaFrankie, Ferry Slik and Tan Yunhong.



Fees:

Low income countries RMB 2500

High income countries RMB 5500

Accommodation and food:

Food and accommodation are NOT included in the course fees.

Participants should budget on spending approximately RMB45 per day on 
food, which is available through the XTBG canteen or in Menglun town.

We can also arrange accommodation for participants at either a budget 
hotel in Menglun town (RMB 55/day) or at the XTBG hotel (RMB 200/day). 
We are happy to arrange room sharing. Please indicate your hotel 
preference and room sharing preference when registering
 for the course.

Fellowships:
 OPEN. A limited number of fellowships are available to low income 
country participants to encourage a greater diversity. However, because 
of the limited funds available, we
 strongly advise all participants to seek funds from other sources.

Fellowships will be awarded in two categories; (1) Fee waiver (RMB2500), and (2) Travel award (RMB2500).

Why take a course on the flora of Southeast Asia?

Southeast Asia is one of the hottest hotspots of global biodiversity. 
There are over 40,000 vascular plant species, with a species density ten
 times that of the European flora, and the region is home to many well 
known and economically important plant taxa,
 such as rice, rattan, bananas, rambutan, nutmeg, meranti and yam. Being
 able to recognize plants is an essential skill for many aspects of 
ecology and conservation biology, but is problematic when the species 
diversity is so high, only a few plants are flowering
 at any one time, and regional floras are incomplete.

This course will arm students with an ability to identify plants in the 
field, thereby enhancing the quality of observations they may make in 
the course of their research. It is a course for
non-plant taxonomy majors.
 Everyday we will collect plant material from the field and learn the 
field characters for identifying them. As we are collecting plants 
directly in the field,
 we will be dealing mainly with sterile material and sterile characters.
 This is deliberate since this is how plants are most often encountered.
 In the afternoons, we will review the day’s collecting, look at 
herbarium material, and arrange our observations
 within a systematic framework. In addition, we will have a series of 
lectures relating to the study of plants, on topics ranging from 
DNA-barcoding to plant ecophysiology. The course also benefits from its 
location: XTBG has a phylogenetically diverse living
 collection of over 12000 plant species, including many thematic 
collections, a herbarium with over 100000 specimens focused on tropical 
China and Indo-China, and research laboratories studying plant genomics,
 plant resources, plant geography, plant-animal
 co-evolution, ecology and conservation.

This course is targeted at senior undergraduate and postgraduate 
students interested in the botanical wealth of Southeast Asia. 
Participants will learn how to make good quality plant collections, how 
to describe field characters, and how to recognize the important
 plant families and genera. By the end of the course, participants will 
have learned to identify over 90% of the individuals in a forest to 
Family or Genus level.

No prior knowledge of botany or biology is assumed, and at the beginning
 of the course all the necessary botanical terms will be explained. The 
course is also, therefore, appropriate for anthropologists, 
environmental scientists, or conservation practitioners,
 as well as biologists, who wish to improve their ability to recognize 
plants.









Ferry Slik

Professor

Plant Geography Lab

中国科学院西双版纳热带植物园

Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden

Chinese Academy of Sciences

Menglun, Mengla,

Yunnan 666303, China

Tel. +86-15924688380



Website

http://www.phylodiversity.net/fslik/



Plants of Southeast Asia

http://www.asianplant.net(http://www.asianplant.net/)



Trees of Sungai Wain

http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/Sungaiwain/



Asian plant species synonym website

http://www.phylodiversity.net/fslik/synonym_lookup.htm



Macaranga and Mallotus of Borneo

http://www.nationaalherbarium.nl/MacMalBorneo/index.htm