Using biodiversity databases to assess vascular plant diversity in Protected Areas: a case study of Parque Estadual do Forno Grande, Brazil.

Background: The Parque Estadual do Forno Grande is a fully protected area in the southern Espírito Santo State, Brazil. It belongs to the Atlantic Forest domain, with predominantly dense, ombrophilous, seasonal semi-deciduous forests and herbaceous/shrubby vegetation on rock outcrops. The area is recognised as highly important for conservation, designated as a priority biological area for protecting the Atlantic Forest's biodiversity.

Floristic survey of vascular plants of a poorly known area in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (Flona do Rio Preto, Espírito Santo).

Background: The Atlantic Forest is one of the most threatened biomes in the world. Despite that, this biome still includes many areas that are poorly known floristically, including several protected areas, such as the "Floresta Nacional do Rio Preto" ("Flona do Rio Preto"), located in the Brazilian State of Espírito Santo. This study used a published vascular plant species list for this protected area from the "Catálogo de Plantas das Unidades de Conservação do Brasil" as the basis to synthesise the species richness, endemism, conservation and new species occurrences found in the "Flona do Rio Preto".

A list of land plants of Parque Nacional do Caparaó, Brazil, highlights the presence of sampling gaps within this protected area.

Background: Brazilian protected areas are essential for plant conservation in the Atlantic Forest domain, one of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots. A major challenge for improving conservation actions is to know the plant richness, protected by these areas. Online databases offer an accessible way to build plant species lists and to provide relevant information about biodiversity.

Using online databases to produce comprehensive accounts of the vascular plants from the Brazilian protected areas: The Parque Nacional do Itatiaia as a case study.

Background: Brazil is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, with about 37,000 species of land plants. Part of this biodiversity is within protected areas. The development of online databases in the last years greatly improved the available biodiversity data.

The evolutionary history of Mimosa (Leguminosae): toward a phylogeny of the sensitive plants.

Premise Of The Study: Large genera provide remarkable opportunities to investigate patterns of morphological evolution and historical biogeography in plants. A molecular phylogeny of the species-rich and morphologically and ecologically diverse genus Mimosa was generated to evaluate its infrageneric classification, reconstruct the evolution of a set of morphological characters, and establish the relationships of Old World species to the rest of the genus.

Methods: We used trnD-trnT plastid sequences for 259 species of Mimosa (ca.