Estimating species diversity and distribution in the era of Big Data: to what extent can we trust public databases?

ABSTRACT:

Aim

Massive digitalization of natural history collections is now leading to a steep accumulation of publicly available species distribution data. However, taxonomic errors and geographical uncertainty of species occurrence records are now acknowledged by the scientific community - putting into question to what extent such data can be used to unveil correct patterns of biodiversity and distribution. We explore this question through quantitative and qualitative analyses of uncleaned versus manually verified datasets of species distribution records across different spatial scales.

Location

The American tropics.

Methods

As test case we used the plant tribe Cinchoneae (Rubiaceae). We compiled four datasets of species occurrences: one created manually and verified through c

SUBMITTER: Maldonado C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5012125 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature