Although South African vegetation is very complex, it can be divided into several vegetation types based on the biome concept. The Greater Cape Floristic Region includes predominantly two iconic biomes β Fynbos and Succulent Karoo. Three other biomes are also represented in the GCFR β Desert, Forests and Albany Thicket. There are several other biomes in South Africa outside the GCFR β Nama-Karoo, Grassland, Savanna and Indian Ocean Coastal Belt (according to Mucina & Rutherford 2006).
Plants can be divided into several life forms according to the position of resting buds that allow them to survive unfavorable environmental conditions (winter, dry season, etc.).
Therophytes (annuals) β annual plants which complete their life-cycle rapidly under favorable conditions and survive the unfavorable cold or dry season in the form of seed.
Cryptophytes β perennial plants with resting buds lying either beneath the surface of the ground as a rhizome, bulb, corm, etc., or a resting bud submerged under water or in marsh. Specifically, Geophytes (resting buds under the soil surface) are one of the most prominent plant life-forms within the GCFR.
Hemicryptophytes β perennial plants with resting buds at or near the soil surface. Typically plants with ground rosettes or grasses.
Chamaephytes β perennial plants with resting buds on persistent shoots near the ground β usually woody plants (shrublets) with buds borne close to the ground, no more than 25 cm above the soil surface.
Phanerophytes β woody perennials with resting buds more than 25 cm above soil level, e.g. trees or shrubs.
Epiphytes β plants unconnected to ground thus with resting bud position irrelevant; usually growing on phanerophytes.
Browse the database according to
Detailed instructions how to use the database.
- Browsing the database
- Searching the database
- Exporting data into CSV
- Following new records using RSS
- Adding new records
- Managing taxonomy and editing categories
- Importing multiple records
- Database feedback, requesting permissions and contributing
Browsing the database
In the top menu navigate to BROWSE, and browse the database records according to endemism (i.e. if the species is endemic to GCFR or not), life form (i.e. all records of particular life form), red list category (i.e. records of species of particular conservation status), taxonomy (displayed in tree-like form from families below), or vegetation type (i.e. records of species growing in particular vegetation type).
Every category contains brief description of particular vegetation type, life form, etc. Below is table with respective records, and map showing their distribution. Click to the label in the ID column to get details of the selected records. Table can be sorted by clicking on the orange column headers. Clicking to links in any other column than ID leads to table listing respective taxonomy (species), life form, or vegetation type.
Searching the database
Basic search uses taxonomy (any rank up to family). Start to type into the search field, wait a second, and the list of matching names will appear.
Select the taxon from the list. If there is no drop-down list, your text does not match any taxon available in the database. You must always select from the list! Otherwise the taxon search will not work.
Multiple values can be separated by commas. Start typing, select first taxon, separate any other taxon by comma, repeat.
Advanced search allows combination of various information. When using Advanced search, it’s not necessary to type any taxonomic placement.
Any search still outputs same table. It is possible to go to details of any record by clicking to the label in the ID column, or export all outputs using the CSV option.
Exporting data into CSV
Any table showing browse or search results can be exported using the CSV icon. The data are exported as TSV. The export contains all data colums (not only information visible in the displayed table). The resulting text file uses UTF-8 encoding, UNIX end of lines, TAB as column separator and no cell quoting.
Following new records using RSS
New records in any category available through the BROWSE menu (see above) can be followed using RSS web feeds. The RSS icon is below the table of records.
Adding new records
X
Managing taxonomy and editing categories
X
Importing multiple records
X
Database feedback, requesting permissions and contributing
X
Specimen ID
14-617
1C value (Mbp)
1030.50
1C value (pg)
1.05
Reference standard
Solanum pseudocapsicum
Source of genome size data
Our own
Endemism
Taxonomic placement
Red list category
Life form
Vegetation type
Plant image(s)
Locality
Exact GPS
GPS is exact (e.g. recorded in the field by GPS receiver)
The southernmost tip of Africa is famous for its extraordinary rich and unique flora that led to establish it as worldwide hotspot of plant diversity and separate floristic element β the Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR; Born et al. 2007, Manning & Goldblatt 2012, Snijman 2013). It extends the boundary of the Core Cape Subregion (CCS; Manning & Goldblatt 2012) to include regions housing winter rainfall succulent karoo (Extra Cape Subregion, ECS; Snijman 2013, Allsopp et al. 2014). The GCFR is recognized as important centre of plant diversity and endemism on Earth (Myers et al. 2000), because it harbours more than 11 000 species, and it displays a species-level endemism up to 77.9% (Born et al. 2007, Manning & Goldblatt 2012, Snijman 2013). Similar species richness is remarkable and comparable to the most diverse floras worldwide (Mayers et al. 2000, Goldblatt & Manning 2002). Additionally, ECS is the only arid region in the world identified as a biodiversity hotspot and reaching up to 40.4% of species endemism (Snijman 2013).
Despite broadly accepted concept of weak contribution of polyploidization events in evolution of tremendous diversity in the GCFR (reviewed by Oberlander et al. 2016), some recent works suggested that another level of complexity and diversity is likely hidden behind the extraordinary species richness (e.g. KrejΔΓkovΓ‘ et al. 2013, Schmickl et al. 2015, Linder et al. 2017) β i.e. hidden world of various ploidy levels, whole-genome changes, intraspecific genome size variation, etc. The database is dedicated to untangling the extent of these unrecognized phenomena and their contribution to evolution of plant diversity in the GCFR.
The main goal of the database is to gather reliable data on various aspects of whole-genome changes (variation in ploidy level, genome size, chromosome counts) in plants from the GCFR and provide them to scientific community in unify form for further analyses.
The database is still under heavy development, several important features are not implemented yet and user interface is not finished. If having some feature request or any other comments, contact developer.