Description
The database contains occurrence records of the endemic plants of Nepal based on the herbarium specimens that have been deposited at the National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH) of the Department of Plant Resources, Ministry of Forest and Environment, Kathmandu, Nepal. The endemic species included the species that have been reported only from Nepal until now. The database has records of 43 species included in 274 herbarium specimens. The digitization and publication process of this database was supported by Biodiversity Information Fund for Asia (BIFA; project no. BIFA3_025) program of Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) funded by Ministry of Environment, Government of Japan.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 274 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
KATH (National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories)(2020): Endemic flora of Nepal at KATH. v1.3. Department of Plant Resources, MoFE, Government of Nepal. Dataset/Occurrence. http://rds.icimod.org:8080/hkh-bif/resource?r=endemic_flora_of_nepal_kath&v=1.3
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Department of Plant Resources, MoFE, Government of Nepal. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: f7fc8184-1ca5-4ff2-98a6-59aab751b5bb. Department of Plant Resources, MoFE, Government of Nepal publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Participant Node Managers Committee.
Keywords
Occurrence; Specimen
Contacts
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
Geographic Coverage
Nepal in between India and China in Asia
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [26.215, 79.695], North East [30.657, 88.462] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
All vascular plants identified to species level.
| Phylum | Tracheophyta (Vascular plants) |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1926-05-20 / 2018-05-26 |
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Project Data
A research project on Mobilizing occurrence data of the alien and endemic plant species of Nepal was implemented by the Central Department of Botany, Tribhuvan University (CDB TU), Kathmandu and the Department of Plant Resources (DPR), Ministry of Forest and Environment, Government of Nepal, in association with Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. The CDB TU is managing Tribhuvan University Central Herbarium (TUCH) and the DPR is managing National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH). Herbarium specimens that have been deposited at TUCH and KATH were digitized (photography and data capturing).
| Title | Mobilizing occurrence data of alien and endemic plant species of Nepal |
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| Identifier | BIFA3_025 |
| Funding | The main funding for this project (BIFA3_025) came from the Biodiversity Information Fund for Asia (BIFA) program of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) which was funded by Ministry of Environment, Government of Japan. Co-funding came from the Central Department of Botany (Tribhuvan University), Department of Plant Resources, and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (UK). |
| Study Area Description | This work covered the entire area of Nepal which lies between India and China in Asia. The country has been divided into three ecological regions: western (west of 83 degree east latitude), central (between 83 and 86.5 degree east latitude) and eastern (east of 86.5 degree east latitude). Politically, the country has been also divided into 77 districts (previously 75 districts). During this project, we digitized herbarium specimens of the flowering plants (limited to alien and endemic plants) collected since 1925 AD. |
| Design Description | The aim of the project was to digitize and publish occurrence data of the alien and endemic plants of Nepal based on the herbarium specimens. The project started with the preparation and validation of the checklist of the alien and endemic plant species of Nepal. We finalized the checklist of 179 alien species and 313 species of endemic species. Herbarium specimens of these species that have been deposited at Tribhuvan University Central Herbarium (TUCH) and National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH) were sorted out and identification confirmed with the help of taxonomic experts. In each herbarium specimen, barcode and institutional stamp were put. In addition, color chart and scale were put at the time of the photography of the specimens. We used camera at TUCH and scanner at KATH for capturing image of the specimens. Information associated with each specimen were entered in database using MS excel and formatted according to the Darwin Core Standard. |
The personnel involved in the project:
- Point Of Contact
- Principal Investigator
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9457-2637
- Author
- Author
- Author
- Author
Sampling Methods
Using the checklist of endemic flowering plants of Nepal (313 species), herbarium specimens deposited at National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH) were checked and sorted out. Identification of the specimens were checked and verified by taxonomic experts. All the herbarium specimens of the endemic plant species were photographed and related information were captured.
| Study Extent | The database includes the occurrence records of the endemic plants of Nepal based on the herbarium specimens that have been deposited at National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH), Godawari, Lalitpur, Nepal. The specimens were collected from different part of Nepal by Nepalese and foreign researchers. |
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| Quality Control | Identification of plants were confirmed by taxonomic experts of the project team. In situation when geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) were absent in the original records, geo-referencing was done but this was limited to only those specimens which has sufficiently detail description of the collection localities. We also used information available in the website of the Flora of Nepal (http://www.floraofnepal.org/data/localities) for geo-referencing some locations. The geographic coordinates obtained from the geo-referencing were presented up to two digit after decimal point. Entire data were managed in Darwin Core Standard format. |
Method step description:
- Using the checklist of endemic flowering plants of Nepal (313 species), herbarium specimens deposited at National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH) were checked and sorted out. Identification of the specimens were checked and verified by taxonomic experts. All the herbarium specimens of the endemic plant species were photographed and related information were captured. In situation when geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) were absent in the original records, geo-referencing was done but this was limited to only those specimens which has sufficiently detail description of the collection localities. We also used information available in the website of the Flora of Nepal (http://www.floraofnepal.org/data/localities) for geo-referencing some locations. The geographic coordinates obtained from the geo-referencing were presented up to two digit after decimal point. Data were captured by research assistants. The raw data were checked for uniformity of the format and accepted scientific names including author citation. Entire data was managed in Darwin Core Standard format in the template that was available in GBIF. OccurrenceID was designed by combining institution code (i.e. KATH), district code (two letters for each district; for example KT for Kathmandu district) and bar code number with colon in between them. We considered 75 districts in Nepal (In current system the number of districts is 77 but all the herbarium collections mentioned district according to 75 district system). In situation when district was not known and geographic coordinates were absent, we used ‘NP’ (which stands for ‘Nepal’) instead of district code in the OccurrenceID. We mentioned ecological regions (eastern Nepal, central Nepal and western Nepal) under the heading of ‘stateProvince’ and district name under ‘county’ in the DwC format. Before starting publication, the database was validated and inconsistencies identified during validation were fixed by checking raw data and original specimens. When data was ready, we communicated with data hosting institution which has installed Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT). Earlier to this, we registered the organization as data published in GBIF.
Collection Data
| Collection Name | National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH) |
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| Specimen preservation methods | Dried and pressed |
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Additional Metadata
| Purpose | The database has been developed and published to fill geographic gap of the freely available occurrence data of plants and inform policy process for the conservation of biodiversity. Specifically, the database helps to meet Nepal’s commitment to make biodiversity data available as a part of Global Strategy for Plant Conservation 2011-2020 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). |
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| Maintenance Description | Database will be updated when needed and resources to do that is available. |
| Alternative Identifiers | f7fc8184-1ca5-4ff2-98a6-59aab751b5bb |
| http://rds.icimod.org:8080/hkh-bif/resource?r=endemic_flora_of_nepal_kath |