The Greenland Vascular Plant Herbarium of the University of Copenhagen1
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553 ARTICLE The Greenland vascular plant herbarium of the University of Copenhagen1 Christian Bay, Fred J.A. Daniëls, and Geoffrey Halliday Abstract: By the establishment of the Greenland Botanical Survey in 1962 at the Botanical Museum, University of Copenhagen, an era of regular and systematic exploration of the vascular plant flora of Greenland was initiated and it ended in 1996, when funding ended. Preceding this period, the vascular plant flora was mainly known from the results of more sporadic botanical investigations mostly in low arctic West and East Greenland, but after the 1980s, investigations expanded to include the more inaccessible high arctic North- east and North Greenland. Nowadays, vascular plant species have been collected from most regions of Greenland. So far, three regional phytogeographical studies of South, North, and West Greenland have been published, and at present, two papers dealing with the vascular plant flora of East Greenland are ready for publication. These studies will be the basis for a synopsis of the phytogeography of Greenland and a new edition of the Flora of Greenland. The published distribution maps from South, West, and North Greenland based on these collections have been digitized and used for modelling the regional vegetation and flora and its relation to past glaciations and current climate. The specimens from East Greenland have been entered into a database and will be available for future modelling projects. Key words: biodiversity, vascular plant flora, phytogeography, Greenland, vegetation studies, environmental assessments, history. Résumé : Avec l’établissement du « Greenland Botanical Survey » en 1962 au Musée Botani- For personal use only. que de l’Université de Copenhague, une ère d’exploration régulière et systématique de la flore des plantes vasculaires du Groenland a été amorcée et cette ère s’est terminée en 1996, quand le financement a pris fin. Précédant cette période, la connaissance de la flore des plantes vasculaires était principalement fondée sur des investigations botaniques plus sporadiques surtout dans le Bas-Arctique de l’ouest et de l’est du Groenland. Après les années 1980, on a élargi la portée des investigations pour inclure le Haut-Arctique du nord-est et du nord du Groenland, lieux plus inaccessibles. De nos jours, les espèces de plantes vasculaires recueillies proviennent de la plupart des régions du Groenland. Jusqu’à présent, trois études phytogéographiques régionales du sud, du nord et de l’ouest du Groenland ont été publiées et actuellement deux articles traitant de la flore des plantes vasculaires de l‘est du Groenland sont prêts à être publiés. Ces études constitueront la base pour un résumé de la phytogéogra- phie du Groenland et une nouvelle édition de « Flora of Greenland ». Les cartes de répartition publiées du sud, de l’ouest et du nord du Groenland fondées sur ces collections ont été numérisées et utilisées afin de modéliser la végétation et la flore régionales et sa relation par Received 15 September 2016. Accepted 10 December 2016. C. Bay. Institute for Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark. Arctic Science Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by Statsbiblioteket Tidsskriftafdelingen (4.125) on 02/26/18 F.J.A. Daniëls. Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Plants, University of Münster, Schlossplatz 8, DE-48143 Münster, Germany. G. Halliday. 26 Mowbray Drive, Burton in Kendal, Carnforth Lancs LA6 1NF, UK. Corresponding author: Christian Bay (email: [email protected]). 1This paper is part of a Special issue entitled “Arctic Museum Collections: Documenting and understanding changes in biological and cultural diversity though time and space”. This article is open access. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en_GB. Arctic Science 3: 553 – 559 (2017) dx.doi.org/10.1139/as-2016-0039 Published at www.nrcresearchpress.com/as on 12 December 2016. 554 Arctic Science Vol. 3, 2017 rapport aux glaciations passées et au climat actuel. Les spécimens de l’est du Groenland ont été entrés dans une base de données et seront disponibles pour des projets de modélisation. Mots-clés : biodiversité, flore des plantes vasculaires, phytogéographie, Groenland, études sur la végétation, analyses environnementales, histoire. Introduction A detailed knowledge of flora and vegetation is a crucial prerequisite for ecological and environmental investigations. Our knowledge of the flora of Greenland has increased dur- ing the last five decades and regional phytogeographical (Bay 1992; Feilberg 1984; Fredskild 1996b) and plant sociological studies have been carried out (e.g., Böcher 1954, 1963; de Molenaar 1974, 1976; Daniëls 1982; Schwarzenbach 2000. Detailed knowledge on the distri- bution of plant species in the past and present is crucial when predicting the ecological impact of the changing climate in the Arctic. Exploration of the flora of Greenland The Greenland Herbarium of the University of Copenhagen is the world’s largest collec- tion of flowering plants, gymnosperms, and vascular cryptogams from Greenland. The total number of specimens is approximately 140 000 including 185 types, and with the Greenland collections in British Museum, University of Oslo, and Lancaster University, the number exceeds 150 000 specimens of vascular plants from Greenland. Much smaller collections of vas- cular plants are held in the Herbarium of the Naturkunde Museum Münster, Germany, and the Utrecht Herbarium now in the Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden, the Netherlands. The total number of species of vascular plant is approximately 520 (Böcher et al. 1978; Daniëls and van Herk 1984; Bay 1993; Solstad and Elven, in preparation; Struck 2013; Daniels 2015). Collecting vascular plants in Greenland was initiated in 1735 when P. Egede made a book herbarium of plants collected in the vicinity of the capital Nuuk. In the early period in the 20th century, the expeditions went to the more accessible areas by the towns along the For personal use only. southwest coast of Greenland. The exploration of the flora of East Greenland started to intensify during the 1930s, and especially from the 1980s, the exploration of northern East Greenland and North Greenland was logistically possible. Systematic exploration of the flora was carried out in 1962–1996 when the Greenland Botanical Survey operated in most parts of Greenland (Fig. 1). The latest edition of the flora of Greenland (Böcher et al. 1978) is planned to be revised and updated based on finds of new species (Bay 1993) and the increased knowledge on the distribution of plant species gained during the last decades. Since the last update, a few species have been added. Struck (2013) found Botrychium tenebrosum in South Greenland and a revision of the Carex saxatilis material from Greenland by R. Elven and coauthors, Oslo, showed that the North American species Carex membranacea also occurs in North and West Greenland. The Papaver material has been revised based on genetic and morpho- logical studies by Solstad and Elven (in preparation) and four species are identified within the Papaver radicum complex: Papaver cornwallisense, Papaver dahlianum, Papaver labradoricum, and Papaver lapponicum. The number of moss and lichen species from Greenland is approximately 700 and approx- imately 1000, respectively. In addition, the herbarium contains approximately 1500 species Arctic Science Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by Statsbiblioteket Tidsskriftafdelingen (4.125) on 02/26/18 of fungi of which a total of approximately 15 000 specimens have been digitized recently. The Greenland Botanical Survey Greenland Botanical Survey at the University of Copenhagen was founded in 1962 with the purpose of collecting botanical material on yearly excursions to different parts of Greenland. A grant made it possible for a senior Greenland botanist to travel to areas mostly Published by NRC Research Press Bay et al. 555 Fig. 1. Base camps of Greenland Botanical Surveys, 1962–1996. For personal use only. on the west coast of low arctic Greenland. Since the 1980s, it has been possible to work in Northeast and North Greenland when the logistic platforms of the Greenland Geological Sur- vey made it possible to investigate the previously inaccessible areas in the high arctic parts. Arctic Science Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by Statsbiblioteket Tidsskriftafdelingen (4.125) on 02/26/18 Nowadays, vascular plants have been collected from all districts of Greenland (Fig. 1) but many remote areas need to be investigated. Students from Danish universities were trained in identifying the flora and analyzing and classifying the vegetation of Greenland and grad- uated with a master or a Ph.D. degree in arctic botany. Since 1986 the budget was reduced and it was not possible to include students in the yearly excursions. The Greenland Botani- cal Survey was closed down in 1996 following the retirement of its leader B. Fredskild. Published by NRC Research Press 556 Arctic Science Vol. 3, 2017 The focus was on collecting vascular plants but collections of bryophytes, lichens, and fungi were also brought to the herbarium and material was exchanged with other herbaria working with the Arctic flora. The collecting strategy of the Greenland Botanical Survey was to collect specimens of all species at each locality visited typically during 5–8 days of field work. Altogether, approxi- mately 31 100 specimens