OPUS: MOVING BRAZIL NUT (LECYTHIDACEAE) RESEARCH INTO THE FUTURE-II

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The OPUS program (Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis) supports the efforts of late-career scientists to synthesize a large body of work. The goal of this OPUS project is to make available on the Internet all known information on the biology of species in the Brazil nut family (Lecythidaceae). This involves providing electronic descriptions (called species pages) that include: descriptions of species, distribution maps, lists of museum specimens, images, ecological information, lists of characters that facilitate identification, and conservation status. In addition, the web site will include electronic keys for identifying species and essays on the anatomy, cytology, fossil record, evolutionary relationships, pollination biology, and dispersal biology. The synthesis will also highlight needs and opportunities for future research.The Brazil nut family comprises an ecologically dominant and economically important group of rain forest trees, as much a symbol of tropical plants as the jaguar is an icon of tropical animals. This synthesis, at The Lecythidaceae Pages (http://sweetgum.nybg.org/lp/index.php), will be an important reference for both scientists and non-scientists, providing information that bears directly on forest conservation and tropical ecology, and that will be valuable for the development of curricula dealing with the complexity of tropical ecosystems.