Discovery and inventory of Papua New Guinea?s megadiverse flora Papua New Guinea (PNG), while considered botanically one of the world?s most species-rich areas, remains poorly-collected. The size of the vascular flora is largely unknown, with estimates ranging from 11,000 to 25,000 species. Bishop Museum, with collaborators from more than 20 PNG, U.S., and international institutions, will undertake botanical surveys in nine under-collected regions of PNG over three years. The project will lead to the discovery of at least 100 new vascular plant taxa, the documentation of species range extensions, and a significant improvement in the understanding of PNG?s floral species richness and endemism as it relates to faunal diversity and geology.
This project will result in the curation and digitization of botanical collections from PNG, the development of a comprehensive checklist of the vascular flora, the collection of material for future molecular studies, and support the training of two graduate and three undergraduate students and in-country personnel in systematic botany, GIS, and herbarium curation. Results will be used to assess the impacts of human activities, such as forestry and climate change, on the botanical diversity of PNG for conservation priority setting. Information will be made available to scientists and the public through electronic media, scholarly publications, and museum displays.
Discovery and inventory of Papua New Guinea’s megadiverse flora The island of New Guinea and adjacent archipelagos are considered botanically to be one of the world’s most species-rich areas, but are poorly collected and understudied. From 2010 to 2014, Bishop Museum embarked on 11 expeditions to five provinces in Papua New Guinea (PNG), culminating in 2,800 new vascular plant and moss voucher plant specimens, 2,500 tissues for future molecular research, and approximately 18,000 images of the plants in the field. To date, field collections have resulted in the discovery of 14 range expansions and at least ten new species awaiting description, along with the collection of numerous species for which only a single or few collections had been previously made. As collection identifications are ongoing, these numbers are expected to increase. Duplicate specimen sets are housed at the PNG National Herbarium (LAE), the Bishop Museum’s Herbarium Pacificum (BISH), and more than 3,000 specimen duplicates were distributed to 32 national and international institutions for further identification and study by the more than 85 taxonomic specialists collaborating on this project. The 33,500 collections from the New Guinea region housed in BISH have been curated, digitally imaged, and the label data captured and made available via Bishop Museum’s online data portal (http://nsdb.bishopmuseum.org), repatriated to PNG through the PNGPlants portal (www.pngplants.org/), and distributed to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, http://gbif.org), and the NSF-funded iDigBio portal (www.idigbio.org). The effect of population growth, land-use and land-cover changes from 1975-2013 in the coastal village of Kamiali (www.kamiali.org) were studied by the PhD candidate supported by this project. Using 13 Landsat images and land-use information from Kamiali land-managers, changes in swidden agricultural land-use area were not found to mirror population growth. Although some agricultural expansion has occurred with time, the shortening of fallow periods, increase in crop density, introduction of new crop varieties, and selling of more fish to purchase supplemental food from the market (e.g. rice, canned meats) accommodated the subsistence needs of the increasing population, thereby protecting adjacent primary and secondary forest surrounding the village. During this project, 18 undergraduate students, 9 graduate students, one high school student, and more than 30 lifelong learners gained an understanding of the biodiversity of the flora of the New Guinea region, the role of museum collections in biodiversity research, and developed herbarium curation techniques through their work in the collections of BISH. At LAE, six technicians and botanists have participated in expeditions and assisted with the processing and identification of specimens, and a further ten researchers were provided with financial or logistical support to travel to PNG or BISH for their studies. Local PNG residents (ca. 75 field assistants and numerous school students that participated in field work each expedition) were exposed to the scientific techniques and botanical and conservation knowledge of the researchers. The project was also presented at more than 12 professional meetings, and engaged the general public through daily educational programming and the annual "Science Alive!" festival at Bishop Museum, by scientists attending "Career Days" at local Hawaii schools, and through online postings via Bishop Museum’s social media outlets (e.g. Facebook). The project has also provided tools to botanists at LAE, by providing access to the JSTOR Global Plants (https://plants.jstor.org/) Type specimen database, a laptop computer for efficient digitization of collections, and digital cameras and plant presses for fieldwork. A checklist of the flora of the region, consisting of more than 29,000 taxonomic names, linked to more than 9,000 literature sources, indicates there are more than 15,000 species present in the region. This publically available data, incorporated into the NSF-funded Global Names Usage Bank, continues to be updated. More information and links to images of the project can be found at http://pbs.bishopmuseum.org/papuanplants.
