Summary: Updating plant names on iNaturalist's Malaysia Check List

21st century is a challenging time for the study and conservation of flora. Global and local changes rapidly threaten existence of the wilderness and their constituents, but there are also more than ever, opportunities, methods and communities to improve the knowledge and conservation of nature. One notable facet is citizen science and related platform such as iNaturalist, where dedicated individuals contribute to the knowledge and conservation of nature independent from the academic and governmental institutions usually dominating the field. A few challenges lie ahead in this line of work, especially when related to the study of native flora, are the lack of literature and information, expertise and interest ("plant blindness"). Therefore other than growing the naturalist communities through activities on iNaturalist platform, some improvement are needed on iNaturalist, on the dissemination of botanical literature, and guidelines for observing and photographing plants.

I believe some features have been adequately provided by iNaturalist for these purposes. Therefore one of my points of focus is to produce a flora checklist on iNaturalist to inform naturalists in Malaysia about the diversity and existence of specific plants, so they can learn further after knowing their names and distribution.

Since May 2019, around 2000 plant names have been added to Malaysia Check List on iNaturalist using various online and published lists of Malaysian Flora. Entries of endemic or poorly known plants are supplemented with information of their distribution and observation need. As there are estimated 25,000 species of plants in Malaysia, there will be tens of thousands more to add.

The names are extracted from various online and published sources, i.e., the Flora Malesiana website, mybis.gov.my website, iucnredlist website and flora catalogue of Malay Peninsular by Turner 1995. The use of mybis and iucnredlist websites was later discontinued due to presence of exotic plant names on the former and unsatisfactory completeness of the later and were variously corrected. The Flora Malesiana website provides exhaustive plant list with excellent taxonomic and biogeographical information but a few taxa are not available, such as most of the monocots and a few others. On the other hand, Turner's list excludes flora of Sabah and Sarawak. Different literatures are therefore needed in the future to complete the Malaysia Check List on iNaturalist.

LINK TO THE CHECK LIST: https://www.inaturalist.org/check_lists/7496-Malaysia-Check-List?iconic_taxon=47126

Plant families updated for the whole Malaysia (using the Flora Malesiana website):
-Anarcadiaceae
-Aristolochiaceae
-Chloranthaceae
-Crypteroniaceae
-Daniphyllaceae
-Hernandiaceae
-Hypericaceae
-Leeaceae
-Lowiaceae
-Mastixia (Nyssaceae/Cornaceae)
-Menispermaceae
-Monimiaceae
-Myristicaceae
-Passifloraceae
-Peraceae
-Rafflesiaceae
-Symplocaceae
-Taccaceae
-Triuridaceae
-Violaceae

Plant families updated for the whole Malaysia (using the MyBIS.gov.my website):
-Apocynaceae
-Dipterocarpaceae
-Gentianaceae
-Icacinaceae
-Loganiaceae
-Magnoliaceae
-Schisandraceae
-Stemonuraceae

Plant families updated for the whole Malaysia (using the iucnredlist website):
-Annonaceae
-Lauraceae
-Monimiaceae

Plant families updated for the Peninsular Malaysia (using Turner 1995):
-Anthericaceae
-Arecaceae
-Alismataceae
-Asparagaceae
-Convallariaceae (now in Asparagaceae)
-Costaceae
-Cymodoceaceae
-Dioscoreaceae
-Dracaenaceae (now in Asparagaceae)
-Eriocaulaceae
-Graminae (Now Poaceae)
-Joinvilleaceae
-Juncaceae
-Lemnaceae
-Maranthaceae
-Melanthiaceae (now Petrosaviaceae)
-Musaceae
-Philydraceae
-Restionaceae
-Typhaceae
-Xyridaceae

Posted on July 12, 2019 11:09 AM by tansh91 tansh91

Comments

@gancw1 @plaintiger

Consider adding this to the News of Flora of Malaysia?

Posted by tansh91 over 4 years ago

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