Manual of the Alien Plants of Belgium

Checklist
Latest version published by Meise Botanic Garden on Oct 15, 2020 Meise Botanic Garden
Publication date:
15 October 2020
Published by:
Meise Botanic Garden
License:
CC0 1.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 2,606 records in English (369 KB) - Update frequency: biannually
Metadata as an EML file download in English (22 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (19 KB)

Description

The Manual of the Alien Plants of Belgium is a species checklist dataset published by the Botanic Garden Meise. It contains information on all (over 2.500) non-native vascular plants occurring in the wild in Belgium since 1800. The checklist is almost entirely based on a thorough herbarium revision of the main public Belgian herbaria (Verloove 2006), actively maintained, and updated regularly at Verloove (2018, http://alienplantsbelgium.be). Here it is published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes for each species: the scientific name, kingdom, family, stable taxon identifier, and IPNI (2018) scientific name ID where available (in the taxon core), the presence in Flanders, Wallonia and the Brussels Capital Region, as well as the year of the first introduction (first collection) and last assessment/observation in Belgium (given as a year range in the event date in the distribution extension), coarse habitat information (in the species profile extension), and the pathway(s) of introduction, native range(s) and invasion stage in Belgium (in the description extension). The dataset can be used for researching and managing alien plants or compiling regional and national registries of alien species. Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/trias-project/alien-plants-belgium

We have released this dataset to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver. We would appreciate it if you follow the GBIF citation guidelines (https://www.gbif.org/citation-guidelines) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via https://twitter.com/trias_project.

This dataset was published as open data for the TrIAS project (Tracking Invasive Alien Species http://trias-project.be, Vanderhoeven et al. 2017), with technical support provided by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). It is selected as one of the authoritative sources for the compilation of a unified and reproducible checklist of alien species in Belgium.

Data Records

The data in this checklist resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 2,500 records.

2 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

Taxon (core)
2500
Description 
6226
Distribution 
2496

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Verloove F, Groom Q, Brosens D, Desmet P, Reyserhove L (2020): Manual of the Alien Plants of Belgium. v1.10. Botanic Garden Meise. Dataset/Checklist. https://doi.org/10.15468/wtda1m

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Meise Botanic Garden. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 9ff7d317-609b-4c08-bd86-3bc404b77c42.  Meise Botanic Garden publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Belgian Biodiversity Platform.

Keywords

Checklist; Inventorythematic; checklist; inventory; alien species; plants; neophytes; Flanders; Wallonia; Brussels Capital Region; Belgium; TrIAS

Contacts

Filip Verloove
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Botanic Garden Meise
BE
Quentin Groom
Dimitri Brosens
  • Originator
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
BE
Peter Desmet
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
BE
Lien Reyserhove
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)
BE

Geographic Coverage

This checklist covers all plant species that occur as an alien species in Belgium. The dataset also includes information on the presence of a species in Flanders, Wallonia and/or the Brussels Capital Region (the three main political regions in Belgium).

Bounding Coordinates South West [49.49, 2.53], North East [51.51, 6.41]

Taxonomic Coverage

In total, this dataset includes over 2.500 alien plant species, covering 139 families. Although some plant families contain many alien species, most recorded families count for only (very) few taxa. The four largest plant families worldwide embrace most of the recorded taxa: Poaceae (16%), Asteraceae (12%), Fabaceae (8%) and Brassicaceae (5%). Many families are exclusively represented by alien species (36% of all families). Inversely, the larger native families only have a few non-native species. Only taxa at specific or subspecific level are included in the list. Taxa of lower taxonomic rank (varieties and forms) are usually withheld, but in some rare cases they are nevertheless accepted and included in this list.

Kingdom Plantae (plants)
Subkingdom Tracheophytes (vascular plants)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1800-01-01 / 2018-02-28

Project Data

Imagine a future where dynamically, from year to year, we can track the progression of alien species (AS), identify emerging species, assess their current and future risk and timely inform policy in a seamless data-driven workflow. One that is built on open science and open data infrastructures. By using international biodiversity standards and facilities, we would ensure interoperability, repeatability and sustainability. This would make the process adaptable to future requirements in an evolving IAS policy landscape both locally and internationally. The project Tracking Invasive Alien Species (TrIAS) aims to do this for Belgium. For a full project description, see Vanderhoeven et al. (2017, https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e13414).

Title Tracking Invasive Alien Species (TrIAS)
Identifier TrIAS
Funding TrIAS is funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) call for Belgian Research Action through Interdisciplinary Networks (BRAIN).
Study Area Description Belgium.
Design Description The project builds on two components: 1) The establishment of a data mobilization framework for alien species data from diverse data sources and 2) the development of data-driven procedures for risk evaluation based on risk modelling, risk mapping and risk assessment. TrIAS uses facilities from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, http://www.gbif.org), standards from the Biodiversity Information Standards organization (TDWG, http://www.tdwg.org) and expertise from LifeWatch INBO (http://lifewatch.inbo.be) to create and facilitate a systematic workflow. Alien species data are gathered from a large set of regional, national and international initiatives, including citizen science data, with a wide taxonomic scope from marine, terrestrial and freshwater environments. Observation data are funnelled in repeatable ways to GBIF. In parallel, a Belgian checklist of alien species is established, benefiting from various taxonomic and project-based checklists foreseen for GBIF publication.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

See Verloove (2006).

Study Extent See Verloove (2006).
Quality Control See Verloove (2006).

Method step description:

  1. The source data for this standardized checklist is an Excel spreadsheet, maintained by the Filip Verloove and re-uploaded regularly at http://alienplantsbelgium.be/sites/alienplantsbelgium.be/files/Checklist2.xlsx.
  2. This raw data file was reformatted to make it more machine-readable and uploaded to a GitHub repository (https://github.com/trias-project/alien-plants-belgium). See https://trias-project.github.io/alien-plants-belgium for an introduction to this repository and the mapping of this dataset.
  3. We developed a RMarkdown script to document and perform the transformation of the data to Darwin Core, which includes the following steps:
  4. Perform some basic data cleaning of the raw data.
  5. Generate stable and unique identifiers for each taxon (taxonID).
  6. Create a taxon core file (http://rs.gbif.org/core/dwc_taxon.xml).
  7. Create a distribution extension file (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/distribution.xml), including standardization of the distribution date range. For species occurring exclusively in one of the 3 regions (Flanders, Wallonia or the Brussels Capital Region), national distribution date range is added for that region as well.
  8. Create a species profile extension file (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/speciesprofile.xml), with coarse habitat information.
  9. Create a description extension file (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/description.xml), with standardized pathway of introduction (using the pathway vocabulary from the Convention on Biological Diversity (2014)), native range (using the WGSRPD vocabulary from Brummitt (2001) where applicable), and invasion stage (based on Blackburn et al. (2011)).
  10. The resulting Darwin Core data files are uploaded to the INBO IPT and documented with metadata.
  11. The dataset is is published and registered with GBIF.

Collection Data

Collection Name Botanic Garden Meise
Collection Identifier BR
Specimen preservation methods Dried and pressed

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Blackburn TM, Pysek P, Bacher S, Carlton JT, Duncan RP, Jarosik V, Wilson JRU & Richardson DM (2011) A proposed unified framework for biological invasions. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26: 333-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2011.03.023
  2. Brummitt RK (2001) World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (Ed. 2). Published for the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases for Plant Sciences (TDWG) by the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. http://grassworld.myspecies.info/sites/grassworld.myspecies.info/files/tdwg_geo2.pdf
  3. Convention on Biological Diversity (2014) Pathways of introduction of invasive species, their prioritization and management. UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/18/9/Add.1. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal. https://www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/sbstta/sbstta-18/official/sbstta-18-09-add1-en.pdf
  4. The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) (2012). Published on the Internet http://www.ipni.org [accessed 19 January 2018]
  5. Vanderhoeven S, Adriaens T, Desmet P, Strubbe D, Backeljau T, Barbier Y, Brosens D, Cigar J, Coupremanne M, De Troch R, Eggermont H, Heughebaert A, Hostens K, Huybrechts P, Jacquemart A, Lens L, Monty A, Paquet J, Prévot C, Robertson T, Termonia P, Van De Kerchove R, Van Hoey G, Van Schaeybroeck B, Vercayie D, Verleye T, Welby S, Groom Q (2017) Tracking Invasive Alien Species (TrIAS): Building a data-driven framework to inform policy. Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e13414. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e13414
  6. Verloove F (2006) Catalogue of Neophytes Belgium (1800-2005). Scripta Botanica Belgica 39:1:89. http://alienplantsbelgium.be/sites/alienplantsbelgium.be/files/tabel_2.pdf
  7. Verloove F (2018) Manual of Alien Plants of Belgium. Botanic Garden of Meise, Belgium. At: http://alienplantsbelgium.be.

Additional Metadata

Alternative Identifiers 9ff7d317-609b-4c08-bd86-3bc404b77c42
https://ipt.biodiversity.be/resource?r=alien-plants-belgium