Missouri Botanical Garden Open Conference Systems, TDWG 2013 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

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The Use of Plants Database to Identify Gaps in Biodiversity Conservation Network in Madagascar.
Tantely Raminosoa

Building: Grand Hotel Mediterraneo
Room: Sala dei Continenti
Date: 2013-10-30 05:10 PM – 05:25 PM
Last modified: 2013-10-07

Abstract


The Information System on Biodiversity Conservation in Madagascar was established from different prioritization processes under the objective of tripling the size of the Protected Areas within the Country. It provides information on the current Protected Areas Network including the Priority Areas for Plant Conservation in Madagascar. This study aims to present the use of Biodiversity Informatics within the Madagascar Program of Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) in order to understand the possible effects of Climate Change on threatened endemic plants and to determine their impacts on the Priority Areas for Plant Conservation in Madagascar. To do this, we used data from herbarium specimens of endemic plant species stored in the database "Catalogue of Vascular Plants of Madagascar" (http://www.tropicos.org/project/mada), evaluated as threatened under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria, on the one hand, and environmental factors that influence the spatial distribution of plants including climate models under the scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change (IPCC) on the other hand. We predicted species suitable habitat and we then analyzed the distribution models within GIS to identify the overall areas occupied by the threatened endemic plants. The results are composed by important areas that are falling outside the current network of Protected Areas, taking into account the possible effects of Climate Change, that need new conservation efforts.