Format: ORAL

Qingfeng Wang1,2

1 Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences; 2 Sino-Africa Joint Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

East Africa is home to more than 30,000 species of plants, yet current data revealssignificant gaps in floral surveys and studies, with about 16% of the region having zero collections and about 50% being under-surveyed.In the context of China-Africa scientific and technological collaboration under theOne Belt, One Road initiative, the scientists from China and East African countries have engaged in extensivecollaborative researches,focusingon plant taxonomy and conservation biology. For instance,the Flora of Kenya, a collaborative project initiated by scientists fromChina and Kenya. The team carried outstudieson numerous pre-surveyed weak areasand discoveredmore than ten new taxa. These efforts furtherfacilitated the understanding of the diversityof the Kenyan flora as well as its distribution pattern. In Rwanda, the collaborative team discovered more naturalpopulations of dwarf Rwandan water lily (Nymphaea thermarum). A comprehensive taxonomic morphology description was undertaken, and active involvement in its conservation efforts ensued.In Madagascar, the conservation genomic studies of baobabs were performed incorporating with in-depth ecological analyses which further raise the concerns on efficient protection of these amazing trees on the island. All these findings and results wouldprovide valuable insights for developing effective and biologically informed conservation strategies forthe biodiversity of East Africa in a change world.