The patterns of vascular plant discoveries in China

Aim

1. To understand geographic patterns of species discovery by examining the effect of growth form, range size, and geographic distribution on discovery probability of vascular plant species in China.

2. To find out which taxa harbor the largest number of undiscovered species and where those species locate.

3. To find out the determinants of province-level mean discovery time and inventory completeness.

Location: China

Methods

We compiled the discovery time and province-level geographic distributions of ~31000 vascular plant species described between 1753 and 2013 from Flora of China. We used a Cox proportional hazard model to determine the biological and geographic correlates of discovery probability. Accumulation curves of species discoveries were fitted by a logistic discovery model to estimate inventory completeness of different growth forms and of different provinces. We then used linear regression to identify the determinants of mean discovery time, and beta re...