SIFlore, a dataset of geographical distribution of vascular plants covering five centuries of knowledge in France: Results of a collaborative project coordinated by the Federation of the National Botanical Conservatories

Abstract

More than 20 years ago, the French Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN, Secretariat of the Fauna and Flora) published the first part of an atlas of the flora of France at a 20km spatial resolution, accounting for 645 taxa (Dupont 1990). Since then, at the national level, there has not been any work on this scale relating to flora distribution, despite the obvious need for a better understanding. In 2011, in response to this need, the Federation des Conservatoires Botaniques Nationaux (FCBN, http://www.fcbn.fr) launched an ambitious collaborative project involving eleven national botanical conservatories of France. The project aims to establish a formal procedure and standardized system for data hosting, aggregation and publication for four areas: flora, fungi, vegetation and habitats. In 2014, the first phase of the project led to the development of the national flora dataset: SIFlore. As it includes about 21 million records of flora occurrences, this is currently the most comprehensive dataset on the distribution of vascular plants (Tracheophyta) in the French territory. SIFlore contains information for about 15'454 plant taxa occurrences (indigenous and alien taxa) in metropolitan France and Reunion Island, from 1545 until 2014. The data records were originally collated from inventories, checklists, literature and herbarium records. SIFlore was developed by assembling flora datasets from the regional to the national level. At the regional level, source records are managed by the national botanical conservatories that are responsible for flora data collection and validation. In order to present our results, a geoportal was developed by the Fédération des conservatoires botaniques nationaux that allows the SIFlore dataset to be publically viewed. This portal is available at: http://siflore.fcbn.fr. As the FCBN belongs to the Information System for Nature and Landscapes' (SINP), a governmental program, the dataset is also accessible through the websites of the National Inventory of Natural Heritage (http://www.inpn.fr) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (http://www.gbif.fr). SIFlore is regularly updated with additional data records. It is also planned to expand the scope of the dataset to include information about taxon biology, phenology, ecology, chorology, frequency, conservation status and seed banks. A map showing an estimation of the dataset completeness (based on Jackknife 1 estimator) is presented and included as a numerical appendix.

Purpose: SIFlore aims to make the data of the flora of France available at the national level for conservation, policy management and scientific research. Such a dataset will provide enough information to allow for macro-ecological reviews of species distribution patterns and, coupled with climatic or topographic datasets, the identification of determinants of these patterns. This dataset can be considered as the primary indicator of the current state of knowledge of flora distribution across France. At a policy level, and in the context of global warming, this should promote the adoption of new measures aiming to improve and intensify flora conservation and surveys.

Keywords: CBN; FCBN; La Reunion Island; Metropolitan France; Plantae; Tracheophyta.

Figure 1.

Distribution of the dataset by family.

Figure 2.

Temporal distribution of records by decade (shown on logarithmic scale).

Figure 3.

Density of cells by richness of observed species: looking at the distribution within the dataset, it appears that cells with less than 250 distinct species recorded are over-represented.

Figure 4.

Dataset completeness for Metropolitan France according to the Jackknife 1 estimator (data from 1990 to 2013). The number of records in each cell was used as an estimator of the sampling effort. The ratio between the observed and estimated richness of species measures the completeness of inventory in each surveyed cell (Vallet et al. 2012).