Como o histórico de coleta influencia nosso conhecimento sobre a distribuição geográfica das espécies

Abstract

Aim: To assess how the history of botanical collections can influence the knowledge about the geographic range and climatic breadth of a taxon. Hypothesis: It is expected that species with more records and that have undergone more taxonomic revisions will show greater stability in their geographic range and climatic breadth. Location: Neotropical region. Time period: Present. Main taxa studied: Tribe Bignonieae (Bignoniaceae). Methods: A database with ~29.000 georeferenced and dated occurrence records was used, along with 19 bioclimatic variables from WorldClim. Based on these data, we assessed the stability in each species’ geographic range and climatic breadth by building and comparing two polygons: one using all occurrence records of a species (total polygon), and the other using the oldest 80% of records (partial polygon). We also produced maps to visualize the main gaps in the geographic distribution of species. We conducted statistical analyses to assess whether the number of records and taxonomic revisions is related to the stability of knowledge about species’ geographic range and climatic breadth. Results: From the 300 evaluated species, 198 (66%) showed stability in geographic range and 188 (63%) showed stability regarding climatic breadth. Genera with the highest species richness also accounted for the greatest number of species exhibiting instability in both geographic and climatic spaces, as well as the highest number of species with ≤ 10 occurrence records. Notable among these genera are Adenocalymma, Fridericia, and Anemopaegma. The Amazon and Atlantic Forest regions concentrated the highest number of species with low stability across both geographic and climatic spaces. Our analyses indicate that species with a greater number of occurrence records and taxonomic revisions tend to exhibit higher stability in the knowledge of their geographic range and climatic breadth. Main conclusions: Herbarium collections are fundamental to constructing scientific knowledge about biodiversity. To overcome the gaps and biases in the available data, investing in field expeditions and taxonomic revisions is essential. Our study contributes to identifying groups or species that need greater attention, as well as highlighting priority areas for future studies.