Western Australian Cryptogam Statistics

With the increasing focus on cryptogam biodiversity, we consider it useful to present a baseline against which future improvements in our knowledge can be measured. These figures have a specific origin commensurate with our definition of adequate documentation and verification of the source and application of the taxon name. That is, the taxon name has been verified and entered in to the Census of Western Australian Plants database, the name applied to specimens in the Western Australian Herbarium collection and then captured in the Herbarium's specimen database.

Back to current cryptogam statistics page.

Preliminary Statistics - June 2008

Analysis of the size of major cryptogamic groups for various categories of name
Category	Fungi	Lichen	Algae	Bryophytes	Total
Total names A	9	798	1002	194	2003
Non-current names B	2	92	9	4	107
Current names C	7	706	993	190	1896
Current taxa D	7	684	957	166	1814
Current species E	7	672	949	160	1788
Manuscript names F	0	0	1	0	1
Phrase names G	0	0	0	0	0
Published species H	7	672	948	160	1787
Published alien species I	0	0	0	1	1
Published native species J	7	672	948	159	1786
Estimated species number K	*140,000	**700	***9,000	****400	150,100
Notes. Data sourced on 1st June 2008. Compare with the 2009 figures or with the 2007 figures. A - total number of cryptogam names in the database B - number of synonymous, excluded or misapplied names (ie. names no longer in current use, at least in WA) C - number of currently accepted names (ie. includes the species-level name when infra-species exist) D - number of currently accepted taxa (ie. excludes the species-level name when infra-species of that taxon exist) E - number of currently accepted species (ie. only the species-level names, excludes any infra-species names) F - number of proposed but unpublished species (ie. informal names proposed on specimens or in manuscripts) G - number of assigned but unpublished species (ie. informal names assigned to specimens for further analysis) H - number of formally published species names (ie. formally published names described in botanical literature) I - number of published naturalised alien species (ie. formally published names of weed species occurring in WA) J - number of published species native to Western Australia (ie. formally published names of native WA species). K - estimated total number of species expected to occur in Western Australia.

2008 Highlights

For the non-vascular (cryptogamic) plants, a brief comparison of the 2008 with the 2007 data shows:

• an additional 221 cryptogam names entered into the Census of Western Australian Plants database;
• the great majority of new names comes from the addition of moss names from Biggs and Chappill's 'Annotated census of the mosses of the Perth Region', to be published shortly in Nuytsia;
• in all 177 new taxa were added - 158 bryophytes and 19 lichens, including the first record on the Census of an alien cryptogam - the moss Campylopus introflexus (Hedw.) Brid. This takes the number of cryptogams recorded in the Census to 1814 taxa;
• this number now includes almost all the estimated lichens (672/700) and around half the estimated bryophytes (159/400) expected to occur in the State;
• there has been no addition to the fungi or algae in the last year and these groups are still very poorly represented in the Census.

Note that only for the lichens, and for the mosses (Bryophyta) of the Perth region, could this information be considered adequate or representative of the diversity of the group. For the remaining groups, specialists have provided an estimate of the actual number of species that could be found to occur in WA once adequate field and taxonomic studies have been made.

    * Fungi (both macro- and micro-fungi): Pascoe (1991) suggests the ratio of plants to fungi is about 1:10 in Australia, ie. 25,000 plants (native and exotic), and 250,000 fungi. So, if WA has 14,000 vascular plants, then the estimated number of fungi in WA would be 140,000 (N. Bougher, pers. comm.).

   ** Lichen (ie. lichenised fungi): Cranfield (pers. comm.) suggests that even with the recent publication of a State census of lichens (Cranfield, 2004), there are likely to be in the order of another 70 taxa likely to be discovered in coming years.

  *** Algae (including marine macro- and micro-algae, dinoflagellates, diatoms and freshwater macro-algae). The estimated number of macroalgae occurring in WA is 1,400, given that much of the northwest remains to be explored and we are still uncovering new records/species in all parts of WA (J. Huisman, pers. comm.). Huisman goes on to say that "my earlier compilation of diatom/dinoflagellate and other microalgal records for WA included around 600 diatoms and 150 dinoflagellates (the other groups were negligible); marine and freshwater were included. The multiplication factor used by Watson et al. (1995) to estimate the world’s algal species was x10, so WA’s microalgae will probably add up to approximately 7,500 spp."
If we also allow around 100 species of freshwater macroalgae, then the putative number of algae will total some 9,000 taxa.

 **** Bryophytes refers here to the paraphyletic assemblage of mosses, liverworts and hornworts. Streimann & Klazenga (2002) list 212 moss taxa occurring in WA, and M^cCarthy (2003) lists 90 taxa of liverworts and hornworts. As these figures are comparable in size to those listed for the Australian Capital Territory (a region one-thousandth the area), we might expect there are a number of bryophytes yet to discover. Conservatively, the estimated number of taxa occurring in WA could be put at 400 (R. Cranfield, pers. comm.)

References

Biggs, L., and Chappill, J. (in press). An annotated census of the mosses of the Perth Region, Western Australia. Nuytsia 18 (1).

Cranfield, R.J., (2004). Lichen Census of Western Australia. Nuytsia 15 (2) : 193-220.

Huisman, J.M., Cowan, R.A. & Entwisle, T.J. (1998). Biodiversity of Australian marine macroalgae - a progress report. Bot. Mar. 41: 89-93.

McCarthy, P.M. (2003). Catalogue of Australian liverworts and hornworts. Flora of Australia supplementary series. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.

Pascoe, I.G. (1991). History of systematic mycology in Australia. In: History of Systematic Botany in Australasia. Ed by: P. Short. Australian Systematic Botany Society Inc. pp. 259-264.

Streimann, H. and Klazenga, N. (2002). Catalogue of Australian mosses. Flora of Australia supplementary series. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.

Watson, R.T., Heywood, V.H., Baste, I., Dias, B., Gamez, R., Janetos, T., Reid, W. & Ruark, G. (1995). Global Biodiversity Assessment. Summary for Policy-Makers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne. 46 pp.

Compiled by Alex Chapman; last updated on 25 June 2008.