ID: 613 / 140

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: NEOTROPICAL BOTANICAL INVENTORIES: DOCUMENTING WHAT IS LEFT? PERSPECTIVES FROM ACROSS TROPICAL AMERICAS

Abstract: Botanical inventories provide fundamental data to studying plant ecology and evolution and are critical to informing conservation efforts and influencing environmental policy. The urgency to cataloguing plant species in the tropics was already evident in the 1970’s when the pace of biodiversity loss started to be a concern both to the scientific community and the public. We estimate that a great number of plant species have already been lost to extinction even before been scientifically described, and our limited understanding of species’ conservation status indicates that at least one third of plants species are threatened. Efforts to complete botanical inventories continue to be made in what it looks to be a race against time before human activities transforms all natural ecosystems. This symposium brings together specialists whose work involve botanical inventories across the Neotropics, a region that houses the highest number of plant species worldwide. This symposium provides an opportunity to reflect on the experience of undertaking plant inventories in the Neotropical region, share best practices to secure resources such as funding and permits, advise on how to involve relevant stakeholders including local communities, students, public and private institutions, and finally generate recommendations on disseminating results and mobilising gathered data. We aim to discuss ideas to enhance botanical inventories in the Neotropics and strengthen the network of collaboration in the region.

Speaker 1: Alejandra Vasco Botanical Research Institute of Texas. avascog@gmail.com Ferns of Colombia: Accelerating Lineage Discovery to Document Neotropical Fern Diversity

Speaker 2: Sebastián Tello Missouri Botanical Garden JuanSebastian.Tello@mobot.org Using networks of forest plots to study the past and future of Andean plant biodiversity.

Speaker 3: Abel Monteagudo Herbario Vargas, Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco abel.monteagudo@unsaac.edu.pe The impressive diversity of the forests of central Peru and their carbon

Topics (Up to three): Floristics

Topic 2: Macroevolution

Topic 3: Global Change Ecology

Justification: The subjects covered on the proposed symposium are mainly aligned with Floristics and Macroevolution, as well as with Global Change Ecology and Conservation Biology topics. We will bring together researchers who are actively working on plant inventories in the Neotropics, the most biodiverse region in the world, to share best practices on designing, and undertaking field and herbarium research, as well as communicating and disseminating results to positively influence policy makers and the public in the region