Nested singletons in molecular trees: Utility of adding morphological and geographical data from digitized herbarium specimens to test taxon concepts at species level in the case of Casearia (Salicaceae)

Geographic And Taxonomic Occurrence R-based Scrubbing (gatoRs): An R package and workflow for processing biodiversity data

Premise

Digitized biodiversity data offer extensive information; however, obtaining and processing biodiversity data can be daunting. Complexities arise during data cleaning, such as identifying and removing problematic records. To address these issues, we created the R package Geographic And Taxonomic Occurrence R-based Scrubbing (gatoRs).

Methods and Results

The gatoRs workflow includes functions that streamline downloading records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio). We also created functions to clean downloaded specimen records. Unlike previous R packages, gatoRs accounts for differences in download structure between GBIF and iDigBio and allows for user control via interactive cleaning steps.

Conclusions

Our pipeline enables the scientific community to process biodiversity data efficiently and is accessible to the R coding novice. We anticipate that gatoRs will be useful for both established and beginning users. Furthermore, we expect our package will facilitate the introduction of biodiversity-related concepts into the classroom via the use of herbarium specimens.

A new species of Casearia Jacq. (Salicaceae) from Central Panama and insights into its phylogenetic position within the genus

We describe here a new species of Casearia from Panama based on both morphological and molecular data. Caseariaisthmicasp. nov. is restricted to the mid-elevation cloud forests of Central Panama and presents morphological similarities with two more widespread species, C.sanchezii from high elevation areas of El Salvador and Mexico and C.tremula from the Caribbean, Central America, and Northern South America. Caseariaisthmica differs in presenting pedunculated and congested inflorescences with up to 20 flowers, as well as flowers with 12 stamens and a pubescent style. Phylogenetic analysis based on selected plastid (petD, trnK-matK, rpl16 and rps4-trnLF) and nuclear (GBSSI and ITS) markers shows that the new species belongs to subclade B3 of Casearia, a lineage that encompasses species from Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Results of the morphological and molecular analysis were congruent and allowed a broader understanding of this new taxon, especially regarding its relationships to other Casearia.