Format: ORAL

J. Sebastin Tello1, Cecilia Blundo2, Luis E. Gmez lvarez3, Luis Daniel Llambi4, Francisco Cuesta5, Leslie Cayola1,6, Agustina Malizia, Julieta Carilla2, Oriana Osinaga Acosta2, Alfredo F. Fuentes1,6

1. Latin America Department, Missouri Botanical Garden, St, Louis, MO, United States of America. 2. Instituto de Ecología Regional (IER), Universidad Nacional de Tucumán (UNT) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Tucumán, Argentina. 3. Laboratorio de Dendrología, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Ambientales, Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida, Venezuela. 4. Consorcio para el Desarrollo Sostenible de la Ecorregión Andina (CONDESAN), Quito, Ecuador. 5. Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad, Medio Ambiente y Salud (BIOMAS), Universidad de Las Américas (UDLA), Quito. 6. Herbario Nacional de Bolivia (LPB), La Paz, Bolivia.

Botanical inventories are crucial for understanding, managing, and protecting biodiversity. Tropical regions, despite centuries of study, remain poorly known, and their botanical diversity is undocumented. Collaboration to develop large-scale, long-term research programs is vital in this monumental task. In Bolivia, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Herbario Nacional de Bolivia have established a program focused on documenting and conserving plant diversity. A cornerstone of this initiative is the Madidi Project on the eastern slopes of the Bolivian Andes. This project merges traditional botanical exploration with a vast network of forest plots, yielding information from nearly 60,000 collections, 200,000 surveyed trees, and 500 forest plots that document more than 3,000 species, including approximately 200 new to science. A significant effort has been made to standardize species names in this large dataset, a common challenge in such endeavors. The data informs various aspects of plant biodiversity, including diversity, ecology, and evolution. It also aids in assessing species conservation statuses and provides essential biodiversity information to local policymakers. While impactful, the Madidi Project covers a fraction of the Tropical Andes, a global biodiversity hotspot. To address larger-scale biological and conservation challenges, researchers from multiple countries established the Red de Bosques Andinos (RBA). This network includes hundreds of forest plots spanning from Venezuela to Argentina and involves numerous forest biologists. Its formation, primarily by scientists from Andean nations, represents a formidable regional collaboration. The RBA generates vital research on forest ecology and responses to environmental threats. Both the Madidi Project and the RBA exemplify the importance of collaboration and capacity building in long-term forest monitoring and large-scale biodiversity inventories more generally.