[Taxacom] African Plant Database

[John Grehan]

Yes I did find it a bit of work going species by species. I liked the point
locality records instead of range maps. Even noticed that the almost
pan-African Asparagus africanus was absent (or at least not reported) from
the cuvette centrale I have not tried GBIF so I will take a look.

John Grehan

On Fri, Jan 29, 2016 at 5:22 PM, Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's great but the main focus is nomenclature and, like most of these
> types of sites, it's VERY species-centric - you can only see distribution
> of one species at a time, not the whole genus or family. (You can do this
> on GBIF, one of its best points). For comparing distributions (e.g. to see
> which species are allopatric) it's much easier and faster to use the book
> version that the maps are based on (12 maps per page):
>
> J.-P. LEBRUN & A. L. STORK (1991-2015). Tropical African Flowering Plants:
> Ecology and Distribution, 8 vols. Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la
> Ville de Genève.
>
> But the set costs about $US1000, so one option is to print paper versions
> of the maps from the website for a group that you're interested in.
>
> On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 10:20 AM, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Since there seem to be quite a few biodiversity database specialists on
>> this list I would be curious as to whether anyone has an informed opinion
>> abut the relative quality of the African Plant Database at African Plants
>> Database (version 3.4.0). Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville
>> de
>> Genève and South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria.
>>
>> Bearing in mind that no database is perfect, I am interested to see if my
>> own impression is that it is satisfactory - that the site provides quite a
>> reasonable level of accuracy, including distribution maps (yes maps!
>> perfect for biogeogrpahy) that distinguish different sources (e.g.
>> herbarium specimens). Of course no site may stand alone I and where
>> possible I try to corroborate with alternative sources - but its not
>> always
>> possible.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> John Grehan
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>> Channeling Intellectual Exuberance for 29 years in 2016.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Dunedin, New Zealand.
>
> My books:
>
> *Panbiogeography: Tracking the history of life*. Oxford University Press,
> New York. 1999. (With R. Craw and J. Grehan).
> http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Bm0_QQ3Z6GUC
> <http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Bm0_QQ3Z6GUC&dq=panbiogeography&source=gbs_navlinks_s>
>
>
>
> *Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University of California
> Press, Berkeley. 2012. www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520271968
>
>
>
> *Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Cambridge
> University Press, Cambridge. 2014. www.cambridge.org/9781107041028
>
>
>
> *Biogeography and evolution in New Zealand. *Taylor and Francis, Boca
> Raton FL. 2016. www.tandf.net/books/details/9781498751872/
>