The online Flora of Mexico: eFloraMEX

Abstract

Background: Mexico is a megadiverse country with an elevated diversity of species of vascular plants. A comprehensive Flora that includes all of the vascular plants distributed in Mexico does not yet exist. Electronic Floras have demonstrated the value of a compendium based on existing knowledge and published Floras, checklists and revisions. Questions: What is the best approach for publishing the Flora of Mexico? What resources are needed to create this Flora? What is the current status of these resources? Objective: The objective of this paper is to summarize and evaluate the taxonomic and digital resources and the bioinformatic tools needed to develop an online Flora for the vascular plants of Mexico, as well as to discuss its content. Results and Conclusions: An online flora using the EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy is proposed, with the collaboration of Mexican and international researchers. It will be based on approximately 5.3 million specimens deposited in Mexican herbaria, with an inter-operational portal to other biodiversity platforms. The name assigned to this online flora is “eFloraMEX”. As a starting point, the taxonomic backbone, the checklist for the Mexican vascular plants including approximately 29,000 species, was published in a portal (efloramex.ib.unam.mx) to be revised and updated by specialists. A council of taxonomists and computer experts will lead the eFloraMEX project on two fronts: taxonomic and digital resources. The main challenges to completing this Flora are building the team, training taxonomists, digitizing the specimens for most of Mexican herbaria and obtaining the required long-term funding.