Occurrence data collation template v.1

The collation of plant species’ occurrence data is a fundamental task in conservation planning and subsequently in the development of a National Strategic Action Plan (NSAP), or National Strategies, for the conservation and sustainable use of plant species, because it provides the baseline information which will help to define long-term conservation management recommendations for plant diversity. Given the diverse nature of the potential sources of occurrence data (e.g. genebank accessions, herbarium specimens, bibliographic references, internet references, biodiversity or botanical databases, personal communications from experts, field observations), occurrence data are normally varied in both the format and type of information provided and, therefore, need to be standardized. This template was thus prepared to assist users to collate plant species' occurrence data in a systematic manner and at the same time standardize it to perform data analyses that are usually needed when planning for their conservation, including facilitating the formatting of data needed to be used with the CAPFITOGEN tools (Parra-Quijano et al. 2016, http://www.capfitogen.net/). The template here published is in MS Excel format as this is perhaps the most used spreadsheet. Sources of the descriptors used in the template include Alercia et al. (2012), Castañeda Álvarez et al. (2012) (descriptors used in the 'Adapting agriculture to climate change: collecting, protecting and preparing crop wild relatives' project, Dempewolf et al. 2014) and the 'ExternalSourcesDataFormat.xlsx' file created by Mauricio Parra-Quijano for the CAPFITOGEN package (http://www.capfitogen.net). It is important to note that some descriptors’ names and definitions have been modified and adapted. This templates was developed within the framework of the ACP-EU funded project ‘In situ conservation and use of crop wild relatives in three ACP countries of the SADC region’ (SADC Crop Wild Relatives for short). It has also resulted from several years of research and experience from working with various countries, including Mauritius and Zambia which have already used it and provided feedback on its structure and content. NOTE that this worksheet is protected with a password and some of its content and structure cannot be edited.