A data set of non-flowering seed producing plants at TAFORI herbarium

Study Extent

Specimen preserved at Lushoto Silviculture Research Center comes from all regions of Tanzania.

Sampling

Data presented in this data set were collected during implementation of various research projects in Tanzania. Plant materials were collected and pressed in the field, dried, identified and mounted on sheet bearing detailed labels, preserved and fixed into folders, then stored in cabinet’s cardboards systematically and sequentially (Alexiades, 1996). Every sheet of specimens contains standard information for herbarium collections, including; taxonomic identification, locality information, geographical coordinates, collector information, and ecological data. In addition, the specimens have been treated to prevent pests damage.

Method steps

1. The information on the specimen labels was our data source. To digitize each specimen, we followed three steps: data capture, data cleaning, and data publication. In the data capture process, we extracted all the information on the specimen’s label, and we input the information into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets using Darwin-Core format. In this process, we grouped the specimen information into specific categories of Darwin Core data standards. We used “GEOlocate” (https://www.geo-locate.org/default.html) to acquire the coordinates of the specimens lacking geographical coordinates. We obtained the coordinates by geo-referencing the name of the village or location written on the preserved specimen. Afterwards, we conducted data cleaning to ensure data consistency and adherence to Darwin Core standards. We mainly used “data validator” tool available under GBIF website (https://www.gbif.org/tools/data-validator) to identify missing or incorrect information in our data set. To verify the taxonomic nomenclature, we used “species matching” tool available under GBIF website (https://www.gbif.org/tools/species-lookup), the Plant list (http://www.theplantlist.org/), and World flora Online (http://www.worldfloraonline.org/). All the tools we used are open-source software or available as an open online platform.

This dataset has information from 364 specimens belonging the following families: Pinaceae (35.2%), Cupressaceae (31%), Podocarpaceae (29.1%), Araucariaceae (2.7%), Cycadaceae (0.8%), Zamiaceae (0.82%) and Taxaceae (0.27%).

1. Gymnosperm

More than 95% of the records are from Tanzania and few from UK.