Data Paper |
Corresponding author: Kristijn R.R. Swinnen ( kristijn.swinnen@natuurpunt.be ) Academic editor: Yasen Mutafchiev
© 2017 Roosmarijn Steeman, Wouter Vanreusel, Rutger Barendse, Filip Verloove, Nico Wysmantel, Walter Van den Bussche, Thomas Gyselinck, Pieter Hendrickx, Arnout Zwaenepoel, Pierre Van Vooren, Steven Jacobs, Peter Desmet, Karin Gielen, Marc Herremans, Kristijn R.R. Swinnen.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Steeman R, Vanreusel W, Barendse R, Verloove F, Wysmantel N, Van den Bussche W, Gyselinck T, Hendrickx P, Zwaenepoel A, Van Vooren P, Jacobs S, Desmet P, Gielen K, Herremans M, Swinnen K, all plant working groups and plant observers (2017) Waarnemingen.be – Plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium. PhytoKeys 85: 1-10. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.85.14925
Resource citation:
Steeman R, Vanreusel W, Barendse R, Verloove F, Wysmantel N, Van den Bussche W, Gyselinck T, Hendrickx P, Zwaenepoel A, Van Vooren, P, Desmet P, Gielen K, Herremans M, Swinnen KRR (2016) Waarnemingen.be – Plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium. Dataset/Occurrence: https://doi.org/10.15468/fyuklz
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Waarnemingen.be - Plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium is a species occurrence dataset published by Natuurpunt. The dataset contains almost 1.2 million plant occurrences of 1,222 native vascular plant species, mostly recorded by volunteers (citizen scientists), mainly since 2008. The occurrences are derived from the database http://www.waarnemingen.be, hosted by Stichting Natuurinformatie and managed by the nature conservation NGO Natuurpunt. Together with the datasets Florabank1 (
native, distribution, observation, citizen science, waarnemingen.be
Purpose: Plants have a long history of being recorded by both amateur and professional botanists. Volunteer data from amateur botanists were always an important source of distribution data of plants. The atlas of Flanders and the Brussels Capital region (
Source publication: http://dataset.inbo.be/planten-natuurpunt-occurrences This paper describes version 1.4 of this resource.
Dataset on GBIF: http://www.gbif.org/dataset/bfc6fe18-77c7-4ede-a555-9207d60d1d86, DOI: https://doi.org/10.15468/fyuklz
Taxonomic coverage: the taxonomic reference for the dataset is Heukels’ Flora of the Netherlands by
General taxonomic coverage description: The datasets contains 1,222 native vascular plant (Plantae) species (as well as an additional number of subspecies, varieties, forms, hybrids and multispecies) recorded in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region. This includes angiosperms (flowering plants), gymnosperms, ferns and allies, but not algae, mosses and lichens. If the observer remarked that the specific individual of this native plant was introduced by man, then this is recorded in the field establishmentMeans.
Kingdom: Plantae
Families: Adoxaceae, Alismataceae, Amaranthaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Apiaceae, Apocynaceae, Aquifoliaceae, Araceae, Araliaceae, Asparagaceae, Aspleniaceae, Asteraceae, Athyriaceae, Balsaminaceae, Berberidaceae, Betulaceae, Blechnaceae, Boraginaceae, Brassicaceae, Butomaceae, Buxaceae, Campanulaceae, Cannabaceae, Caprifoliaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Celastraceae, Ceratophyllaceae, Cistaceae, Colchicaceae, Convolvulaceae, Cornaceae, Crassulaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Cupressaceae, Cyperaceae, Cystopteridaceae, Dennstaedtiaceae, Dioscoreaceae, Droseraceae, Dryopteridaceae, Elaeagnaceae, Elatinaceae, Equisetaceae, Ericaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, Fagaceae, Gentianaceae, Geraniaceae, Grossulariaceae, Haloragaceae, Hydrocharitaceae, Hypericaceae, Iridaceae, Juncaceae, Juncaginaceae, Lamiaceae, Lentibulariaceae, Liliaceae, Linaceae, Lycopodiaceae, Lythraceae, Malvaceae, Marsileaceae, Melanthiaceae, Menyanthaceae, Molluginaceae, Montiaceae, Myricaceae, Nartheciaceae, Nymphaeaceae, Oleaceae, Onagraceae, Onocleaceae, Ophioglossaceae, Orchidaceae, Orobanchaceae, Osmundaceae, Oxalidaceae, Papaveraceae, Plantaginaceae, Plumbaginaceae, Poaceae, Polygalaceae, Polygonaceae, Polypodiaceae, Potamogetonaceae, Primulaceae, Ranunculaceae, Resedaceae, Rhamnaceae, Rosaceae, Rubiaceae, Ruppiaceae, Salicaceae, Santalaceae, Sapindaceae, Saxifragaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Solanaceae, Taxaceae, Thelypteridaceae, Typhaceae, Ulmaceae, Urticaceae, Verbenaceae, Violaceae, Zosteraceae
The number of records (observations) per plant species is shown in Fig.
Top 10 of the most frequently recorded plant species in www.waarnemingen.be.
Scientific name | Number of observations |
---|---|
Urtica dioica | 8687 |
Cardamine pratensis | 8446 |
Glechoma hederacea | 7741 |
Quercus robur | 7695 |
Plantago lanceolata | 7438 |
Filipendula ulmaria | 7024 |
Cirsium arvense | 7010 |
Anemone nemorosa | 6902 |
Ranunculus repens | 6863 |
Achillea millefolium | 6830 |
General spatial coverage: Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region (Fig.
Flanders is largely covered by agricultural land (51%), urban areas (30%) and woodland (10%) while the Brussels Capital Region mainly consists of urban areas (73%), woodland (12%) and other green areas (10%) (
Coordinates: 50°40'48"N and 51°30'36"N Latitude; 2°32'24"E and 5°55'12"E Longitude.
We show the number of plant observations and the number of plant species per IFBL grid cell (Fig.
Left: the number of plant observations per IFBL grid cell. Red (1–200), orange (201–500), yellow (501–1000), light blue (1001–2000) and dark blue (2001–14000). Right: the number of plant species (subspecies, varieties, forms, hybrids and multispecies not included) per IFBL grid cell. Red (1–150), orange (151–300), yellow (301–450) and blue (451–600). The two white IFBL grid cells in the west of Flanders are locations without plant observations.
Known distribution based on the data from www.waarnemingen.be of true plant species (subspecies, varieties, forms, hybrids and multispecies not included) based on the number of IFBL grid cells with observation of this species.
Scientific name | Number of IFBL grid cells |
---|---|
Urtica dioica | 790 |
Achillea millefolium | 777 |
Plantago lanceolata | 772 |
Glechoma hederacea | 765 |
Ranunculus repens | 765 |
Cardamine pratensis | 762 |
Cirsium arvense | 743 |
Sambucus nigra | 740 |
Tanacetum vulgare | 739 |
Rumex obtusifolius | 736 |
Temporal coverage: June 30, 1855 - December 31, 2016
The majority of records was collected since the launch of www.waarnemingen.be in 2008 (Fig.
Number of collected records between 1855 and 2000 (left) and between 2001 and 2016 (right). Each number on the left x-axis is a period of 10 year (e.g., 1910 = 1901–1910, etc.). Note the difference between the scales on the y-axis between the left and right figures and the strong increase in smartphone registration of records since the launch of an app (ObsMapp for Android) in 2012.
Sampling description: Most observations (species, date, location, observer) were recorded by volunteers (citizen scientists). The dataset also includes historical records and datasets imported in waarnemingen.be. The large majority of records (95%) is a casual observation (presence only record). 5% of observations were registered as part of a species checklist. This is also recorded in the field samplingProtocol. The frequency distribution of number of observers per number of records or species is shown in Fig.
Quality control description: Recorded data are verified by a group of botanical experts (including professional botanists), based on collected specimens, the observer’s species knowledge, added photographs and known species list of locations. The validation procedure from www.waarnemingen.be consists of an interactive procedure in which observers can be asked for additional information by a team of validators, after which the validator manually adds a validation status. Manual validation focuses on rare species, species that are reported outside their known range and observations accompanied by pictures. Records that are not manually validated are additionally checked by an automated validation procedure that takes into account the number of manually validated observations of a species within a specified date and distance range. 12% of the plant records in this dataset are supported by photographs in www.waarnemingen.be. The validation status is indicated in the field identificationVerificationStatus, the link to the original record in references.
The Plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, is an export from www.waarnemingen.be. The data were standardized to Darwin Core using a SQL query. The included terms are:
occurrenceID, type, language, license rightsHolder, accessRights, references, datasetID, institutionCode, datasetName, basisOfRecord, informationWithheld, dataGeneralizations, individualCount, sex, reproductiveCondition, establishmentMeans, samplingProtocol, eventDate, continent, countryCode, stateProvince, municipality, verbatimCoordinates, verbatimCoordinateSystem, verbatimSRS, decimalLatitude, decimalLongitude, geodeticDatum, coordinateUncertaintyInMeters, georeferenceRemarks, identificationVerificationStatus, taxonID, scientificName, kingdom, taxonRank, scientificNameAuthorship, vernacularName, nomenclaturalCode.
Generalized and/or withheld information: location information is generalized to 4 × 4 km² IFBL grid cells. Observer name, exact XY-coordinates, toponyms, and photographs are not included in the published dataset, but are stored in the source database. The dataset will be updated on GBIF on a regular basis (currently planned every two year).
Object name: Waarnemingen.be - Plant occurrences in Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region, Belgium
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Character encoding: UTF-8
Language: English
License: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Usage norms: http://www.natuurpunt.be/normen-voor-datagebruik
First publication date: 2016-12-23
Distribution: http://dataset.inbo.be/planten-natuurpunt-occurrences
Since 2010, the number of plant observations registered annually is larger than all the records available in www.waarnemingen.be before 2008. Observations are currently mainly presence only records (95%). Presence is certain, absence of data can have multiple reasons: an IFBL grid cell was not visited, the species was not present/seen, the species was present but not registered in the database. For this reason, since the end of 2016, www.waarnemingen.be focusses more on lists and transect registration. During field work, the route can be tracked via the mobile app ObsMapp. At the end of the excursion, observers can indicate different types of lists, depending on whether: (1) the records are opportunistically collected presence only data (some records of some of the species encountered), (2) all individuals of selected species were registered, (3) all species were recorded or (4) all individuals of all species (more useful for animals than plants). This additional information allows to account for a better observation effort than currently is the case.
The most frequently and widespread observed plant in www.waarnemingen.be is Urtica dioica. This species was in
We thank the editor and reviewer for significant improvements to the manuscript. We thank all plant working groups and plant observers for their efforts to record plant observations all over Flanders and the Brussels Capital Region.