An overview of the Lejeuneaceae in Australia

As currently understood, the Lejeuneaceae flora of Australia consists of 122 species in 27 genera. The family occurs almost exclusively in rainforested areas along the eastern coast of the continent. Based on species composition, three floristic regions are recognized: tropical, subtropical and temperate. The tropical region contains 80 percent of the total number of Lejeuneaceae found in Australia, the subtropical region contains 45 percent, and the temperate region only 15 percent of the total flora. The affinities of the Lejeuneaceae in the tropical and subtropical regions are strongest with the Asian flora, and those of the temperate region are strongest with the New Zealand flora. The diversity of the Lejeuneaceae flora in Australia is higher than might be expected for a non-equatorial region. This diversity may result from the wide variety of rainforest habitats that are available along both latitudinal and altitudinal gradients. The temperate flora is probably derived from that which existed in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and probably southern South America prior to the breakup of Gondwanaland. The modern tropical flora is probably a mixture of species that were part of the original northern Gondwanan flora and those that have invaded more recently

A re-evaluation of Cheilolejeunea subgenus Xenolejeunea

Cheilolejeunea subgenus Xenolejeunea Kachroo & Schust. is emended to account for variability observed in stem anatomy and lobule structure. Cheilolejeunea subgenus Tegulilejeunea Schust. is reduced to synonymy with subgenus Xenolejeunea. A new sectional classification of subgenus Xenolejeunea is proposed (sections Gigantae, Meyenianae, and Xenolejeunea). A key distinguishes among the sections and the 10 species accepted in the subgenus, which is known from Australasia, Oceania and tropical Asia. A nomenclator and discussion is provided for each species. Comments on excluded species conclude the treatment

The bien r package: A tool to access the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database

There is an urgent need for largeâ scale botanical data to improve our understanding of community assembly, coexistence, biogeography, evolution, and many other fundamental biological processes. Understanding these processes is critical for predicting and handling humanâ biodiversity interactions and global change dynamics such as food and energy security, ecosystem services, climate change, and species invasions.The Botanical Information and Ecology Network (BIEN) database comprises an unprecedented wealth of cleaned and standardised botanical data, containing roughly 81 million occurrence records from c. 375,000 species, c. 915,000 trait observations across 28 traits from c. 93,000 species, and coâ occurrence records from 110,000 ecological plots globally, as well as 100,000 range maps and 100 replicated phylogenies (each containing 81,274 species) for New World species. Here, we describe an r package that provides easy access to these data.The bien r package allows users to access the multiple types of data in the BIEN database. Functions in this package query the BIEN database by turning user inputs into optimised PostgreSQL functions. Function names follow a convention designed to make it easy to understand what each function does. We have also developed a protocol for providing customised citations and herbarium acknowledgements for data downloaded through the bien r package.The development of the BIEN database represents a significant achievement in biological data integration, cleaning and standardization. Likewise, the bien r package represents an important tool for open science that makes the BIEN database freely and easily accessible to everyone.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142458/1/mee312861_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142458/2/mee312861.pd

World checklist of hornworts and liverworts

A working checklist of accepted taxa worldwide is vital in achieving the goal of developing an online flora of all known plants by 2020 as part of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation. We here present the first-ever worldwide checklist for liverworts (Marchantiophyta) and hornworts (Anthocerotophyta) that includes 7486 species in 398 genera representing 92 families from the two phyla. The checklist has far reaching implications and applications, including providing a valuable tool for taxonomists and systematists, analyzing phytogeographic and diversity patterns, aiding in the assessment of floristic and taxonomic knowledge, and identifying geographical gaps in our understanding of the global liverwort and hornwort flora. The checklist is derived from a working data set centralizing nomenclature, taxonomy and geography on a global scale. Prior to this effort a lack of centralization has been a major impediment for the study and analysis of species richness, conservation and systematic research at both regional and global scales. The success of this checklist, initiated in 2008, has been underpinned by its community approach involving taxonomic specialists working towards a consensus on taxonomy, nomenclature and distribution

Habitat area and climate stability determine geographical variation in plant species range sizes

Despite being a fundamental aspect of biodiversity, little is known about what controls species range sizes. This is especially the case for hyperdiverse organisms such as plants. We use the largest botanical data set assembled to date to quantify geographical variation in range size for ∼ 85 000 plant species across the New World. We assess prominent hypothesised range-size controls, finding that plant range sizes are codetermined by habitat area and long- and short-term climate stability. Strong short- and long-term climate instability in large parts of North America, including past glaciations, are associated with broad-ranged species. In contrast, small habitat areas and a stable climate characterise areas with high concentrations of small-ranged species in the Andes, Central America and the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest region. The joint roles of area and climate stability strengthen concerns over the potential effects of future climate change and habitat loss on biodiversity

Species by site matrix for the BIEN2 database

Species by site matrix for taxa in the BIEN2 database. Cells (rows in the matrix) are 100x100km in size and species lists for each cell contain all taxa with ranges that fall within the cell. See Goldsmith et al. (2016) and McFadden et al. (2019) for details on range size estimation. This dataset with additional information can also be found at https://knb.ecoinformatics.org/view/doi:10.5063/F16W9800. REFERENCES Goldsmith, G.R., Morueta-Holme, N., Sandel, B., Fitz, E.D., Fitz, S.D., Boyle, B. et al. (2016). Plant-O-Matic: a dynamic and mobile guide to all plants of the Americas. Methods Ecol. Evol., 7, 960–965. McFadden, I.R., Sandel, B., Tsirogiannis, C., Morueta-Holme, N., Svenning, J.-C., Enquist, B. and Kraft, N.J.B. Temperature shapes opposing latitudinal gradients of plant taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity. Ecology Letters, in press