Huge global dataset maps over 190 obscure tropical plants
Citizen Science
Every one of these 54,000 location pins started with a botanist, hiker, or citizen scientist spotting a plant and logging it, the same kind of reporting that helps track whether species in your own backyard are spreading, shrinking, or showing up somewhere new.
Think of this as a giant spreadsheet, not a discovery. Researchers pulled together every recorded sighting of over 190 plant species from a public database called GBIF, covering everything from tropical trumpet trees and strangler figs to desert purslanes and rare Vochysia trees from South America. It's the kind of raw material scientists use later to map where a plant actually grows, spot gaps in our knowledge, or flag species that might be disappearing.
Key Findings
The dataset contains 54,066 individual occurrence records pulled from GBIF's global database
Records span more than 190 species across unrelated plant families, including Cecropia, Vochysia, Fagraea, Portulaca, and Winteraceae relatives
The list mixes common tropical trees with rare, narrowly distributed species, suggesting the download was built for a biogeography or conservation-mapping study
chevron_right Technical Summary
This is a raw data export from GBIF, the global biodiversity database, pulling together 54,066 location records for more than 190 plant species spanning seven unrelated plant families, from tropical trees to desert succulents.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Occurrence Download
A dataset containing 54066 species occurrences available in GBIF matching the query: { "and" : [ "TaxonKey is one of (Coussapoa vannifolia [GBIF Backbone Taxonomy], Coussapoa glaberrima [GBIF Backb...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Species Mentioned
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