Dr Maarten Christenhusz presents a fascinating talk on the discovery of new species and relocating extinct plants.
FREE Event
Roughly 2300 new plant species are described each year. They are found in various ways, in the field, herbaria, genetic studies and even online. Sadly, some new species may already be extinct before they were even described.
Thousands of plant and animal species have gone extinct since humans started roaming the earth, but most plant extinctions never left a trace. This poses the problem known as Berkeley extinction: species that may once have existed but were never recorded and thus were never listed as extinct. They disappeared unnoticed. We will never know how many there were and where they grew. However, species that were recently listed as extinct may still exist. It will take some effort, but it is possible that many of these presumed extinct species may still be found somewhere. Modern technology such as satellites and drones are now being employed to scout for new and extinct species in inaccessible places.
With virtually everyone now carrying a camera and a GPS in their pocket, the information on species is increasing through an army of amateur and professional naturalists. This can be used to identify areas of high biodiversity, map rare species and even find new species or rediscover presumed extinct ones.
FREE Event - Booking Required
About Dr Maarten Christenhusz:
Dr Maarten Christenhusz [pronounce as: 'kris-tun-hues'] was born in Enschede, a small town in the eastern Netherlands in 1976, where he grew up with a love of the natural world. He studied biology at Utrecht University (BSc, MSc) specialising in plant systematics. In 2002 he moved to Finland to pursue a PhD in biodiversity at Turku University.
He then worked on the Flora Mesoamericana project at the Natural History Museum in London for two years, followed by curating the collections of the Botanical Garden in Helsinki. He finally settled in the UK to work on his encyclopaedic Plants of the World book together with Michael Fay and Mark Chase (2017). He also initiated the taxonomic journal Phytotaxa in 2009, which he edited for the first 3 years. He then became editor in chief of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society for 6 years and has recently published a book in Dutch with Kew colleague Rafaël Govaerts on plant extinction. A book on plant sexuality is currently in press.
Maarten enjoys field work and has organised many collecting expeditions to all continents except Antarctica. He is especially well at home in the Caribbean flora and with Mark Chase he has carried out extensive field work in Australia to study the wild tobacco genus Nicotiana. He has (co-)authored 7 books and more than 190 peer reviewed publications.
Currently he is involved in collecting UK plants for sequencing as part of the Darwin Tree of Life project. His main interests are in the relation between humans and plants, in biogeography, taxonomy and evolution. He is a keen photographer, illustrator and gardener