Filling a critical gap in the sampling of Amazonia plant diversity: Floristic inventory of the Tapajos National Forest and Amazonia National Park

巴西亚马逊雨林中的塔帕霍斯河流域是一个生物多样性异常高、生态系统威胁紧迫的地区，包括亚马逊森林砍伐率最高的一些地区。该地区的植物群落知之甚少，植物学家对盆地内许多大片地区的研究也很少。关于该地区植物学信息的匮乏阻碍了对亚马逊地区植物多样性过去、现在和未来的关键研究。该项目将汇编该区域两个保护区的植物清单，这两个保护区对生物多样性的研究和管理至关重要。其主要目标是为这两个地区的植物编制一份互动式、开放获取、基于网络的概览指南。项目数据将与全球研究界和巴西政府机构共享，以便更有效地研究、保护和管理这两个地区包含的植物资源和自然生态系统。除了其基本的科学价值，该项目还将通过资助项目人员的机构间研究旅行以及为美国和巴西的学生提供培训机会来促进美国和巴西之间的科学合作。该项目将编制塔帕霍斯国家森林和亚马逊国家公园维管植物的全面清单。这将是亚马逊东南部任何类似规模地区的首次此类库存。该项目将综合现有数据和密集收集标本标本和组织样本，以进行基于DNA的研究。将采用一般收集和以地块为基础的清查方法，以最大限度地恢复物种。标本的鉴定将依赖于传统的基于形态的方法，以及DNA条形码。这两份清单将构成与以前记录在案的亚马逊植物群进行比较的关键数据集。项目数据将有助于检验有关亚马逊植物多样性分布的假设，并将有助于对预测的植物区系变化进行建模。这项研究极有可能扩大植物分布的已知范围，并将导致重大的新分类多样性的发现。以网络为基础的植物概论将得到最先进的信息学技术的支持，并将为需要准确识别植物物种的不同研究领域广泛提供项目数据和其他资源。项目数据还将与各种国际生物多样性数据门户和相关应用程序共享。

The basin of the Tapajos River in the Brazilian Amazon Rain Forest is a region of exceptionally high biodiversity and pressing ecosystem threats, including some of the highest deforestation rates in the Amazon. The plant communities of the region are very poorly known, and many large areas within the basin have been little studied by botanists. This paucity of botanical information about the region impedes critical research on the past, present, and future of Amazonian plant diversity. This project will compile inventories of the plants of two protected areas in the region that are critical for the study and management of biodiversity. The primary goal is to produce an interactive open-access, web-based conspectus guide to the plants of the two areas. Project data will be shared with the global research community and Brazilian governmental agencies so that the plant resources and natural ecosystems contained within the two areas might be more effectively studied, protected, and managed. Beyond its basic scientific value, the project will advance scientific collaboration between the US and Brazil by sponsoring inter-institutional research travel by project personnel and by providing training opportunities for American and Brazilian students.This project will produce comprehensive inventories of the vascular plants of Tapajos National Forest and Amazonia National Park. These will be the first such inventories for any comparably sized areas in southeast Amazonia. The project will combine a synthesis of existing data with intensive collecting of herbarium specimens and tissue samples for DNA-based studies. General collecting and plot-based inventory approaches will be implemented to maximize species recovery. Identification of specimens will rely on traditional morphologically based approaches, as well as DNA barcoding. The two inventories will constitute critical datasets for comparison with previously documented Amazonian floras. Project data will be useful for testing hypotheses about the distribution of Amazonian plant diversity and will contribute toward efforts to model projected floristic change. It is highly probable that the research will extend the known limits of plant distributions and will result in the discovery of significant new taxonomic diversity. A web-based conspectus flora will be supported by state-of-the-art informatics technologies and will make project data and other resources broadly available for diverse areas of research that require the accurate identification of plant species. Project data will also be shared with a wide range of international biodiversity data portals and related applications.