Collections-based taxonomy has been the backbone of RBG Kew’s scientific research throughout its history, with both collections and taxonomic expertise playing a central role in describing and conserving biodiversity. Building on the increased data availability resulting from Kew’s digitisation programme, now stored in our Integrated Collections Management System, this project will involve extracting, compiling, and cleaning a dataset of all Kew’s holdings from Taiwan (Formosa). If available, this dataset will be combined with the equivalent data from the NTU herbarium.
The student will interrogate this dataset of Taiwanese specimens to address questions of species composition, documenting patterns such as the most frequently collected families, genera, and species, and identifying patterns of collection across time and geography. The results will form the basis of a report to be submitted for publication in Kew Bulletin. This resource will provide an important baseline for future studies on the evolution of Taiwan’s flora and will contribute to environmental and conservation management within the Republic.
