ICRAF-Philippines has finished compiling a georeferenced database of threatened forest trees in the Philippines, a first-of-its-kind in the country. Version 1.0 of the database contains 2,067 occurrence records spanning 47 species in 13 families.
The database is an attempt to georeference the occurrence of threatened forest trees in the Philippines based on locality descriptions, established species' elevation range, recent surface cover, administrative and protected area maps.
The choice of which threatened species to include was based on the Philippines' official country listing of threatened plants, as well as from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
Species occurrence information are primarily taken from Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) entries and botanical legacy literature. These are augmented with species occurrence reported in recent literature, technical reports and biodiversity surveys. The end result is a database of occurrence records, each with a unique location per species and enough metadata directing the database user to the source of occurrence data.
The database can be a useful tool for practical conservation efforts. It can be used for determining which species should be prioritized for specimen or germplasm collection and taxonomic identification. When translated into GIS, it is also a convenient tool for visualizing species occurrence on a country scale and can be used for historical mapping of specimen collections and observations.
The database also has the potential to provide insight to the possible distribution of forest formations in the Philippines by using the occurrence of indicator species as proxy. If coupled with various environmental data as well as projected climate, it serves as an integral component in spatially modelling the distribution of tree species in the recent past as well as in a possible future scenario.
The database can be freely downloaded in .xls format, along with the list of database references and a KML (keyhole markup language) file of all enumerated locations in the database for easy visualization in Google Earth or other KML clients. Detailed documentation may be requested through email from l.ramos@irri.org or a.m.torres@irri.org.
The database is a continuing work in progress. Comments are welcome. (11/11/2011)
Citation: Ramos, Lawrence T, Torres, Alfie M, Pulhin, Florencia B and Lasco, Rodel D. 2011. Georeferenced database of threatened forest tree species in the Philipines, Version 1.0. http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/ph/georefdb.
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