Editing Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (section)

== Kew Science ==

=== Scientific staff ===

More than 470 scientists work for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.<ref name="Science">{{Cite web |title=Kew Science |url=https://www.kew.org/science |access-date=19 September 2023 |website=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew}}</ref> The Director of Science is [[Alexandre Antonelli]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Professor Alexandre Antonelli |url=https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/people/alexandre-antonelli |access-date=24 December 2024 |publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew}}</ref>  The Deputy Directors are Elizabeth Gardner, Paul Kersey and [[Monique Simmonds]].<ref name=sciencestaff>{{cite web|url=https://www.kew.org/about-us/who-we-are/organisational-structure|title=Organisational structure and staff: Science|publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew|access-date=16 January 2025}}</ref>

Kew Science staff include those of the [[Kew Madagascar Conservation Centre]].<ref name="kew-madagascar">{{cite web |title=UK and Islands – Madagascar |url=https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/departments/conservation-science/uk-madagascar |publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew}}</ref>

=== Databases ===
The scientific staff at Kew maintain a variety of plant and fungal data and digital resources, including those listed below.<ref>{{cite web|title=Data and digital resources |url=https://www.kew.org/science/collections-and-resources/data-and-digital|website=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew|access-date=16 January 2025 }}</ref>

==== Plants of the World Online ====
{{main|Plants of the World Online}}
Plants of the World Online is an online database launched in March 2017 as one of nine strategic outputs with the ultimate aim being "to enable users to access information on all the world's known [[seed-bearing plants]] by 2020". It links [[taxonomic]] data with images from the collection, to provide a single point of access with information on identification, distribution, traits, conservation, molecular phylogenies and uses.<ref name=AboutPOWO>{{cite taxon|POWO |title=About Plants of the World Online |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/about |access-date=16 January 2025}}</ref>

==== International Plant Names Index====
{{main|International Plant Names Index}}
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) includes information from the ''[[Index Kewensis]]'', a project which began in the 19th century to provide an "Index to the Names and Authorities of all known flowering plants and their countries".<ref name=Jackson1893>{{cite book |contribution=Preface |contribution-url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/133989#page/10/mode/1up |contributor-last=Hooker |contributor-first=Joseph Dalton |contributor-link=Joseph Dalton Hooker |last=Jackson |first=Benjamin Daydon |title=Index Kewensis plantarum phanerogamarum: nomina et synonym omnium generum et specierum a linnaeo usque as annum MDCCLXXXV complectans nomine recepro auctore patria unicuique planta subjectis: sumptibus beati Caroli Roberti Darwin ductu et consilio Josephi D. Hooker. 2 vols. |trans-title=Index Kewensis: an enumeration of the genera and species of flowering plants from the time of Linnaeus to the year 1885 inclusive together with their authors names, the works in which they were first published, their native countries and their synonyms: compiled at the expense of the late Charles Robert Darwin under the direction of Joseph D. Hooker |date=1893 |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]] |location=Oxford |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/66720#/summary }} {{link note|note=at [[Biodiversity Heritage Library]] }}</ref> The [[Harvard University Herbaria]] and the [[Australian National Herbarium]] co-operate with Kew in the IPNI database, which was launched in its present form in 1999 to produce an authoritative source of information on [[botanical nomenclature]] including publication details of seed plants, [[ferns]] and [[lycophytes]]. It is a nomenclatural listing of all published taxonomic plant names including new species, new combinations and new names at rank of [[Family (biology)|botanical family]] down to infraspecific. It provides data for other related projects including [[Tropicos]] and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility ([[GBIF]]).<ref name= TurnerGovaerts2019/>

==== Neotropikey ====

Nitropikey is an international project, based at Kew Gardens, on the [[flowering plant]]s of the [[Neotropics]] (tropical South and Central America).<ref name=Neotropikey>{{cite web |title= Key to the Flowering Plant Families of the Neotropics |url=https://keys.lucidcentral.org/search/key-to-the-flowering-plant-families-of-the-neotropics/ |website= lucidcentral.org|access-date = 16 January 2025 }}</ref><ref name=Bishop>{{cite web |first=Joe |last=Bishop |title=Developing an identification key for the economically important genus Inga |website=Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew |url=https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/identification-kew-genus-inga |access-date=16 January 2025}}</ref><ref name=NeotropikeyKew>{{cite web |title=Neotropical Flowering Plants |website=Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 February 2020 |url=http://www.kew.org/science/tropamerica/neotropikey.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201205438/http://www.kew.org/science/tropamerica/neotropikey.htm }}</ref>

==== World Checklist of Selected Plant Families ====
{{main|World Checklist of Selected Plant Families}}
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) is a register of accepted scientific names and synonyms of 200 selected seed plant families. WCSP is widely used, and most authoritative web resources on plants use it as their basis.<ref>{{cite web|title=World Checklist of Selected Plant Families|website=Kew Science|publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew|url=https://wcsp.science.kew.org/home.do|access-date=12 June 2020|ref={{harvid|WCSP|2020}}|archive-date=11 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200611140321/https://wcsp.science.kew.org/home.do|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name= TurnerGovaerts2019/>

==== World Checklist of Vascular Plants ====

The World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) includes all known [[vascular plant]] species ([[flowering plant]]s, [[conifer]]s, [[fern]]s, [[clubmosses]], and [[firmosses]]). It is derived from the WCSP and the IPNI and therefore only includes names found in those databases. It is the taxonomic database for Plants of the World Online. Since WCSP includes only selected families, WCVP will seek to complete the process.<ref name=AboutWCVP>{{cite taxon|POWO |title=
About the World Checklist of Vascular Plants |url=https://powo.science.kew.org/about-wcvp |access-date=16 January 2015}}</ref><ref name= TurnerGovaerts2019>{{cite conference |last1=Turner |first1=Robert |last2=Govaerts |first2=Rafaël |author-link2=Rafaël Govaerts |title=Challenges of Integrating and Curating Nomenclatural and Taxonomic Data in the World Checklist of Vascular Plants |date=2019 |journal=[[Biodiversity Information Science and Standards]] |volume=3 |page=e37226  |url=https://biss.pensoft.net/article/37226/ |doi=10.3897/biss.3.37226 |doi-access=free |type=Conference abstract |conference=SI87 - Empowering the taxonomic community by linking information through names and taxonomy |conference-url=https://biss.pensoft.net/browse_user_collection_documents?collection_id=133 <!-- |editor-first1=Olaf |editor-last1=Banki |editor-first2=Markus |editor-last2=Doering-->  }}</ref>
<ref name=Govaerts-2021>{{cite journal   |last1=Govaerts |first1=Rafaël |last2=Nic Lughadha |first2=Eimear |last3=Black |first3=Nicholas |last4=Turner |first4=Robert |last5=Paton |first5=Alan |title=The World Checklist of Vascular Plants, a continuously updated resource for exploring global plant diversity |year=2021 |journal=Scientific Data |volume=8 |issue=1 |page=215 |doi=10.1038/s41597-021-00997-6 |pmid=34389730 |pmc=8363670 |bibcode=2021NatSD...8..215G }}</ref>

==== World Checklist of Useful Plant Species ====

The World Checklist of Useful Plant Species lists 40,292 species, including nine non-plant taxa (e.g. [[nostoc]], [[forkweed]], [[brown algae]]), compiled from multiple pre-existing datasets.<ref name=WCUPS>{{cite web   |last1=Diazgranados |first1=Mauricio |last2=Allkin |first2=Bob |last3=Black |first3=Nicholas |last4=Cámara-Leret |first4=Rodrigo |last5=Canteiro |first5=Cátia |last6=Carretero |first6=Julia |last7=Eastwood |first7=Ruth |last8=Hargreaves |first8=Serene |last9=Hudson |first9=Alex |last10=Milliken |first10=William |last11=Nesbitt |first11=Mark |last12=Ondo |first12=Ian |last13=Patmore |first13=Kristina |last14=Pironon |first14=Samuel |last15=Turner |first15=Robert |last16=Ulian |first16=Tiziana |year=2020 |title=World Checklist of Useful Plant Species |website=The Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity  |url=https://knb.ecoinformatics.org/knb/d1/mn/v2/object/urn%3Auuid%3Ae576e4b7-845a-422a-8472-b5eb078e08eb |doi=10.5063/F1CV4G34 }}</ref>{{clarification needed |reason=Is this an ongoing project of Kew Gardens? The work was done by someone at Kew, but the Kew website doesn't return a search result for "World Checklist of Useful Plant Species", which one would expect if it was a project or supported database that warrants mention in this article.  |date=January 2025}}

=== Collaborative projects ===

====The Plant List ====
{{main|The Plant List}}
Kew also cooperated with the [[Missouri Botanical Garden]] and other international bodies in [[The Plant List]] (TPL). Unlike the IPNI, it provides information on which names are currently accepted. The Plant List is an [[Internet encyclopedia project]] which was launched in 2010 to compile a comprehensive list of [[botanical nomenclature]].<ref name=Paton2013>{{cite web|last=Paton|first=Alan|title=What's in a name? New version of The Plant List released |url=https://www.kew.org/read-and/watch/new-plant-list-released|publisher=Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew|date=2013|access-date=16 January 2025}}</ref> The Plant List has records for 1,064,035 scientific names for plant species, representing 350,699 accepted plant species. In addition, the list has records for 642 plant families and 17,020 plant genera. It was last updated in 2013, and was superseded by [[World Flora Online]].<ref name=TPL>{{cite web|title=The Plant List|url=http://www.theplantlist.org|website=[[The Plant List]] |version=1.1 |date=September 2013|access-date=16 January 2025 }}</ref><ref name=WFO>{{cite web | url=http://worldfloraonline.org/ | title=World Flora Online: An Online Flora of All Known Plants | website=The World Flora Online Consortium | access-date=16 January 2025  }}</ref>

==== World Flora Online ====
{{main|World Flora Online}}
World Flora Online was developed as a successor to The Plant List, in 2012, aiming to include all known plants by 2020.<ref name=WFO/><ref name=AboutWFO>{{cite web |title=About the World Flora Online Project |url=https://about.worldfloraonline.org/who-we-are | publisher=The World Flora Online Consortium | access-date=16 January 2025}}</ref>