www.kew.org ISSN: 0967-8018 Kew Scientist Autum 2013 Issue 44 News from The Living Collections, The Herbarium and The Laboratories at Kew & Wakehurst Place eMonocot The eMonocot portal A web taxonomic resource for plants of new scale and depth W. Baker Dendrobium cuthbertsonii The eMonocot portal showing part of the ‘species page’ content for Colchicum lingulatum. Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Council, has produced a web taxonomic Conservation is the production of an online resource of unprecedented scale for plants, flora of all known plants. To achieve this delivering baseline information for all 70,000 eMonocot aggregates the data from target, RBG Kew and its partners are engaged monocotyledons (20% of all flowering plants). taxonomic web resources and scratchpads in novel initiatives in biodiversity informatics. and delivers it through a portal structured The overarching aim of eMonocot is to enable This emerging e-science is focused on creating around a nomenclatural backbone provided expert taxonomic communities to collaborate access to biodiversity data, including taxonomic by the World Checklist of Monocotyledons and deliver their specialist knowledge to a information, which is often out of reach (www.kew.org/wcsp/monocots). The portal, broad range of users, especially biodiversity for many potential users. Since 2010, Kew developed at the University of Oxford, scientists. Kew’s primary roles have been has led a flagship biodiversity informatics provides identification tools and taxon pages gathering content for taxa (including content project, eMonocot (www.emonocot.org), in for all monocots, presenting data including from existing web taxonomic resources: CATE collaboration with the Natural History Museum habitat, life form, conservation status (where Araceae, Palmweb, Grassbase) and enabling (London) and Oxford University. The project, available) and links to DNA sequence data contributions from taxonomic communities. funded by a three-year consortium grant providers. Users can search geographically The Natural History Museum has lead from the UK Natural Environment Research or add filters to searches to explore the community engagement through providing content in novel ways, providing answers scratchpads (www.scratchpads.eu), free to scientific questions in just a few clicks. websites that allow researchers to manage, Results of searches can be easily downloaded share and publish taxonomic data online. or displayed in graphical visualisations. Scratchpads have experienced widespread The eMonocot portal already provides uptake (c. 600 scratchpads, c. 7,000 active full taxon descriptions for over 20% of users), and over 30 eMonocot scratchpads accepted monocot taxa, over 8,000 images, have been created. Involvement in and phylogenetic trees and 15 keys, including a ownership of the scratchpads by expert key to all monocot families. community members are a vital elements of the sustainability of eMonocot. eMonocot provides an excellent model to inform the roadmap for the Online World Flora. It also shows that biodiversity P. Wilkin informatics can help to forge new collaborative relationships among taxonomists eMonocot collaborator Muthama Muasya (University and with primary users of taxonomic outputs, of Cape Town) investigating Tetraria involucrata such as biodiversity scientists and the broader (Cyperaceae) in the Western Cape, South Africa. community. The power of the web is yet to be fully harnessed by the taxonomic community, but eMonocot has taken us a eMonocot content can be interrogated in new step closer towards taxonomy as a truly and useful ways in the portal. This example plots web-based science. the numbers of species in families of Asparagales occurring in African Tropical dry forests; they hold Contact: Dr Paul Wilkin ([email protected]) 1,031 orchid species. Dr Bill Baker ([email protected]) 1 Direction Honours & Awards Monique Simmonds (Director, Kew Innovation Unit; Deputy Keeper, Jodrell Director of Science Laboratory; Head, Sustainable Uses Group; This November RBG Kew) was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s saw the start of an Birthday Honours List 2013 for ‘services to exciting new era science, environment, technological innovation for Kew’s science and the community.’ when Professor Kew’s Volunteer Guides were honoured with Kathy Willis took the Queens Award for Voluntary Service 2013 up her post as the for ‘inspiring and educating the community on Director of Science. plants and on Kew’s role and providing bus and This is a new role and one that will sensory walking tours to disabled groups.’ bring strong leadership and direction Ana Rita Giraldes Simões successfully passed across science at Kew. For the first time, her PhD viva on 11 September 2013 for her the three major science departments thesis entitled ‘Disentangling bindweeds: RBG Kew of HLAA (Herbarium, Library, Art & systematics and evolution of tribe Monique Simmonds Archives), Jodrell Laboratory and Seed Merremieae (Convolvulaceae)’. Conservation will be brought together in a single science directorate, encouraging Jubilee Waxcap greater collaboration between departments and a more integrated Waxcaps (Hygrocybe s.l.) are of conservation and effective approach. concern across Europe and in Australia. To understand their distribution and ecology, Kathy brings a wealth of experience and hence formulate management guidelines, to this role and will be an internal and a reliable taxonomy is required. At the start external ambassador for Kew’s science of the Defra-funded ‘Project Waxtongue’, a and conservation work, raising its global DNA sequence- and morphology-based study profile and enhancing its scientific involving Kew and Aberystwyth University, there reputation as a centre of excellence were around 50 waxcap species recorded in for plant and fungal science. Her first Britain. Three years later and the ‘Waxtongue’ major task will be to work with staff analysis has raised this closer to one hundred. to develop and implement the science Kew mycologists have recently described two strategy, and this will form the basis species to have emerged from analysis of the for taking Kew’s science forward in Gliophorus psittacina (parrot waxcap) complex. new and innovative ways, without One, G. reginae, forms royal-purple fruit bodies losing expertise in the important areas and a name commemorating the Queen’s of research and curation. Another Diamond Jubilee seemed appropriate. The other major aim of Kathy’s is to raise the species had masqueraded under the epithet quality, impact and creativity of public perplexus in Europe, but the analysis showed this M. Ainsworth engagement with plant and fungal name should be reserved for a North American science. This will allow us to greatly taxon and so the name G. europerplexus was enhance the visitor experience and coined. MycoKeys 7, 45 (2013). promote a greater public understanding Gliophorus reginae at its type locality in Worcestershire. Contact: Dr Martyn Ainsworth ([email protected]) of Kew’s work and its relevance to the big environmental challenges of Versatile hornworts our time. I believe we can continue Over the last few decades scientists have to strengthen the impact, profile and become increasingly certain that fungi contribution of Kew’s science across the were necessary for the initial colonization UK and globally. That is my ambition. and ultimate success of plants on land. Hornworts occupy a key evolutionary Kathy will work closely with the other position as the closest living relatives of the members of the Executive Board, and plants that today dominate Earth’s land we were delighted to welcome Richard masses. Whether and how hornworts relied Barley as Director of Horticulture in on symbiotic fungi was not known. Research August of this year. The senior team was supported by the Natural Environment completed on November 14th when Research Council, led by molecular Gaynor Coley took up her position ecologists Martin Bidartondo (Kew/Imperial as Director of Public Programmes. College London) and Alessandro Desirò Collaboration between these three key (University of Turin) generated new DNA and roles of the Executive Board will bring electron microscopy data on species from exciting new times for Kew’s science around the world showing that hornworts and greater synergy between science, associate with a wider and more versatile horticulture and public engagement. fungal repertoire than other plants. This finding gives a new view of the early history Richard Deverell, Director of terrestrial ecosystems. Proc. R. Soc. B, in K. Field press, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.0207. Contact: Dr Martin Bidartondo ([email protected]) A ‘wall’ of hornworts in New Zealand. 2 Sustainable Agriculture for Forest Conservation Conversion of natural habitat to Alley-cropping of Inga on a unsustainable agricultural land, especially farm in Honduras shifting or slash-and-burn agriculture in tropical forests, is seen as one of the greatest threats to the survival of rare plant species and a major global contributor of climate-change gases. In the Neotropics a system of alley-cropping that permits good yields, permanently, has been developed using the legume Inga by Terry Pennington (Kew) and Mike Hands (Inga Foundation) over the last 20 G. Hernandez/Inga Foundation years. In the past year, Kew has initiated several projects seeking to replicate this success, in the Neotropics with Inga and in the palaeotropics using native species with similar attributes. Inga agroforests in Bolivia Madagascar agroforestry