World Checklist of Useful Plant Species

Plants are essential to human wellbeing, supporting important ecosystem services that are critical components of Natural Capital. They supply food, medicine, fibre, fuel and building materials, and provide a broad spectrum of benefits to society, offering vital solutions to some of the world’s major challenges, including bioenergy, human and animal health, nutrition, microbial resistance, industrial biotechnology, and synthetic biology. In 2016, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew published the first State of the World's Plants report, with key statistics on plants. One of its highlights was the compilation of a list of 31,128 plant species with a documented human use from ten datasets (Diazgranados et al. 2018; RBG Kew 2016). Here, we added the datasets from the Medicinal Plant Names Services (MPNS version 8.2), the Plant Resources of South-East Asia (PROSEA) and the Useful Plants of New Guinea, for a total of 13 large datasets. The resulting checklist contains 40,292 species, including nine non-plant taxa retained because they are frequently misidentified as plants (e.g. nostoc, forkweed, brown algae). The checklist is classified into three kingdoms (Plantae with 40,283 species, Chromista with eight species, and Bacteria with one species), six divisions/phyla, 14 classes, 101 orders, 433 families and 6,737 genera. The nomenclature of the species follows the International Plant Names Index (IPNI: 40,239 names with Life Sciences Identifier - LSID), with a few exceptions for taxa not present in it, for which AlgaeBase (30 names) and Tropicos (23 names) were used. The family classification follows the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (v.2.0) and Plants of the World Online (POWO). For higher taxonomy, the taxonomic backbone of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) was used. The classification of uses is based on a modified version of the Economic Botany Data Collections Standard with ten Level 1 categories: medicines (26,662 species), materials (13,663), environmental uses (8,983), human food (7,039), gene sources (5,212), animal food (4,433), poisons (3,013) social uses (2,596), fuels (2,529) and invertebrate food (1,041). The five most diverse families are Fabaceae (3,547 species), Asteraceae (2,367), Poaceae (2,024), Rubiaceae (1,352), and Euphorbiaceae (1,120). With at least 328 species with reported uses, Solanum is the richest genus, followed by Ficus (308), Euphorbia (287), Digitaria (246) and Syzygium (193). Ninety-one families and 2,790 genera have only one species reported, and 70 species have use reports in all ten categories. The final checklist includes the following information: kingdoms, divisions/phyla, classes, orders, families, genera and species names (with publication authors); LSID numbers; categories of use reported for each species; if considered a crop wild relative; and main sources for the information for most cases. Suggested citation: Diazgranados, M., Allkin, B., Black N., Cámara-Leret, R., Canteiro C., Carretero J., Eastwood R., Hargreaves S., Hudson A., Milliken W., Nesbitt, M., Ondo, I., Patmore, K., Pironon, S., Turner, R., Ulian, T. (2020). World Checklist of Useful Plant Species. Produced by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity.

植物对人类福祉至关重要，其支撑的关键生态系统服务是自然资本（Natural Capital）的核心组成部分。植物可为人类提供食物、药物、纤维、燃料与建筑材料，并为社会带来多维度福祉，为全球诸多重大挑战提供关键解决方案，涵盖生物能源、人畜健康、营养保障、微生物抗性、工业生物技术以及合成生物学等领域。2016年，英国皇家植物园邱园（Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew）发布了首份《全球植物状况》报告，收录了植物相关的核心统计数据。该报告的亮点之一是基于10个数据集，汇编了31128种有明确人类利用记录的植物物种名录（Diazgranados等，2018；英国皇家植物园邱园，2016）。本研究新增了药用植物名称服务（Medicinal Plant Names Services, MPNS 8.2版）、东南亚植物资源数据库（Plant Resources of South-East Asia, PROSEA）以及新几内亚有用植物数据集，最终纳入13个大型数据集。生成的有用植物名录共涵盖40292个物种，其中包含9个非植物类群——此类类群常被误判为植物，例如nostoc、forkweed以及brown algae。本名录按分类阶元划分为3个界：植物界（Plantae，40283种）、色藻界（Chromista，8种）以及细菌界（Bacteria，1种）；另有6个门、14个纲、101个目、433个科以及6737个属。物种命名规范参照国际植物名称索引（International Plant Names Index, IPNI），其中40239个物种名称配备生命科学标识符（Life Sciences Identifier, LSID）；对于IPNI未收录的类群，则采用藻类数据库（AlgaeBase，30个名称）与Tropicos（23个名称）的命名规则。科阶元的分类体系参照《维管植物世界名录》（World Checklist of Vascular Plants, v.2.0）与《全球在线植物志》（Plants of the World Online, POWO）；高阶分类阶元则采用全球生物多样性信息设施（Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GBIF）的分类框架。利用类型的分类体系基于修订版《经济植物学数据收集标准》，共设10个一级类别：药物（26662种）、材料（13663种）、环境用途（8983种）、人类食物（7039种）、基因资源（5212种）、动物食物（4433种）、有毒物质（3013种）、社会用途（2596种）、燃料（2529种）以及无脊椎动物食物（1041种）。物种丰富度排名前五的科分别为豆科（Fabaceae，3547种）、菊科（Asteraceae，2367种）、禾本科（Poaceae，2024种）、茜草科（Rubiaceae，1352种）以及大戟科（Euphorbiaceae，1120种）。茄属（Solanum）是已知利用记录最多的属，至少涵盖328个物种；其次为榕属（Ficus，308种）、大戟属（Euphorbia，287种）、马唐属（Digitaria，246种）以及蒲桃属（Syzygium，193种）。共有91个科与2790个属仅对应1种有利用记录的物种，另有70个物种在全部10个利用类别中均有记录。最终名录包含以下信息：界、门、纲、目、科、属与物种名称（含发表作者）；LSID标识符；各物种的利用类别记录；是否为作物野生近缘种；以及多数情况下的信息来源。推荐引用格式：Diazgranados, M.、Allkin, B.、Black N.、Cámara-Leret, R.、Canteiro C.、Carretero J.、Eastwood R.、Hargreaves S.、Hudson A.、Milliken W.、Nesbitt, M.、Ondo, I.、Patmore, K.、Pironon, S.、Turner, R.、Ulian, T.（2020）.《全球有用植物物种名录》（World Checklist of Useful Plant Species）. 英国皇家植物园邱园（Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew）编制. 生物复杂性知识网络（Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity）.