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.

Preliminary Statistics - June 2010

Analysis of the size of major cryptogamic groups for various categories of name

Category	Fungi	Lichen	Algae	Bryophytes	Total
Total names A	9	822	1100	198	2129
Non-current names B	2	104	25	8	139
Current names C	7	718	1075	190	1990
Species with infraspecies K	0	22	37	23	82
Current taxa D	7	696	1038	167	1908
Current species E	7	686	1028	161	1882
Manuscript names F	0	0	0	0	0
Phrase names G	0	0	0	0	0
Published species H	7	686	1028	161	1882
Published alien species I	0	0	0	0	0
Published native species J	7	686	1028	161	1882
Estimated species number L	*140,000	**700	***9,000	****400	150,100

Data sourced on 9^th June 2010. Compare with the 2009 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^F - number of proposed but unpublished species (ie.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^G - number of assigned but unpublished species (ie.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 - number of species with subordinate current taxa (subspecies, varieties and formas)
^L - estimated total number of species expected to occur in Western Australia.

2010 Highlights

For the non-vascular (cryptogamic) plants, a brief comparison of the 2010 with the 2009 data shows:

• an additional 103 cryptogam names entered into the Census of Western Australian Plants database (16 of these were synonyms);
• the addition of 80 algal taxa, 2 mosses and a lichen;
• an increase in the number of cryptogams recorded in the Census to 1908 taxa, or 1882 species;
• that again there has been no addition of fungal names 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 (Neale Bougher, pers. comm.).

   ** Lichen (ie. lichenised fungi): Ray 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 (John 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 (Ray Cranfield, pers. comm.)

References

Biggs, L. and Chappill, J., (2008). An annotated census of the mosses of the Perth Region, Western Australia. Nuytsia 18 (1) : 1-30.

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 9 June 2010.