Format: ORAL

R.H.J. Erkens1,2, L.M.P. Blanpain1, I. Carrascosa Jara1, K. Runge1, N. Verspagen1, A. Cosiaux3, T.L.P. Couvreur3

1 Maastricht Science Programme, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands 2 System Earth Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Maastricht University, Venlo, The Netherlands 3 IRD, DIADE, Université Montpellier, Montpellier, France

Covering approximately 7% of the terrestrial portion of the earths surface, tropical rain forests harbour c. 45% of all terrestrial species, including approximately three fourth of all tree species. Although humans have impacted tropical forests long before modern times, they are currently at risk because of increasing anthropogenic activities. Especially during the last few decades, humans increasingly influenced the earths surface to meet their needs. As a result, most natural biomes have changed into anthropogenic biomes, also called anthromes. Understanding how different taxa are affected by these changes is key in order to inform measures for conservation and protection, something especially important in this UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Here, we investigate if this impact can be quantified for the globally-distributed tropical plant group Annonaceae (Soursop family) using spatial (distributional) data. Insight is gained in how Annonaceae are distributed over biomes and anthromes. We find that even for a taxonomically well-studied group such as Annonaceae, very little is known about the true distribution and ecological requirements of species. We urge to invest in 1) the exploration of ecological requirements of species in relation to their genetic patterns, in order to understand the impact of ecosystems changes, 2) research on distributional patterns in a temporal framework since the available data collected over decades might not reflect current distributions over biomes and anthromes well, and 3) high-quality spatial data collection that should adhere to the FAIR data principles, so that the quality of spatial analyses will increase. These data will also contribute to better base-line data for IUCN Red List assessments, which are a vital tool to assess the level of threat to a taxon.