Agroforestry Species Switchboard

The Agroforestry Species Switchboard connects users to information for 107,269 vascular plant species by linking to 59 contributing databases through standardized species names, facilitating taxonomic updates and supporting ecological restoration research.

Key Features:

• Species Coverage: The Switchboard encompasses 107,269 plant species, including 54,812 tree-like species covering most known tree species globally.
• Database Linkage: The system links to 59 contributing databases, with ten covering over 10,000 species, 20 covering 1,000–10,000 species, and 22 covering 100–1,000 species.
• Taxonomic Integration: The Switchboard provides taxonomic identifiers to World Flora Online to enable straightforward checking for changes in taxonomy.
• Family-Level Richness Data: The database reports species richness across major plant families, with Fabaceae (9,537 species), Asteraceae (6,041), Rubiaceae (4,812), Poaceae (3,947), Myrtaceae (3,544), Euphorbiaceae (2,689), Malvaceae (2,478), Rosaceae (2,374), Lauraceae (2,334), and Lamiaceae (2,107) as the top ten.

Scientific Applications:

• Ecological Restoration: The Switchboard assists species selection for ecological restoration projects to synergize biodiversity and human well-being objectives.
• Taxonomic Monitoring: Researchers use the integrated World Flora Online identifiers to track and verify taxonomic changes across distributed resources.
• Information Discovery: Users rapidly determine which among the 59 contributing databases contain information for a species of interest and understand how this information can be accessed.

Methodology:

The Switchboard uses standardized species names to link across 59 contributing databases and provides taxonomic identifiers to World Flora Online.