Poster

         Biodiversity Informatics & Herbarium Digitization

Digital information from herbaria for forest restoration in eastern Amazonia

Presenting Author
Fernando Matos
Description
The intensive process of degradation and deforestation of tropical forests is a reality in the Brazilian Amazon, whose intensive and unsustainable use of its natural resources not only leads to the loss of forest cover, but also to the degradation of forests and large areas. The National Policy for the Recovery of Native Vegetation sets forest recovery goals, confirming the reality that ecosystem restoration has become a challenge and a priority in Brazil. The more the chosen species correspond to the regional flora, the greater the success chances of the restoration project. However, if this information is not available in the literature, it is necessary to carry out floristic surveys to guide the choice of priority species for the work of vegetation recovery or search for information on occurrences in the herbaria databases. There is little botanical and ecological information about plant species suitable for initial restoration. In this way, the IAN Herbarium aims to establish a partnership with the speciesLink network, which is a consolidated e-infrastructure, developed to provide free and open access to primary data on Brazilian biodiversity. Thus, the installation and monitoring of experiments to restore forests degraded by agriculture, livestock and mining, in addition to carrying out floristic inventories and installing a seed bank in reference preserved areas, as proposed in this work, will directly contribute to expanding the search bases on species used for re-vegetation, especially on native ones. Therefore, to expand the data infrastructure and developing computational tools that support the development of field activities and research in forest restoration will enable improvements in sustainable forest management and the reversal of land degradation and loss of biodiversity.