Community forums

Southern Africa
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Welcome to the Community Forums for the southern African Community on iSpot.

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Is it possible to access the latest CREW stats?

One of my undergrad course requirements is to give a brief presentation on a conservation-based project/person, and I’m doing mine on CREW. I’d love to be able to talk about how many new species, rediscoveries, and redlist updates CREW has contributed to, but the most recent data I can find are for 2012. Is there anyway I could get hold of the cumulative numbers for 2017?

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What exactly would you require.
I am about to ask why we have not yet had our August or September data updates, otherwise I can only give you data up to June 2017.
Another bug in iSpot: no data dumps for southern Africa.

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June 2017 would be perfect.

I’m mainly looking for the number of new species that CREW has found, and well as the number of rediscoveries of extinct species. But I’d appreciate any stats on the how many species’ conservation status have been updated, or the overall number of species that data have been collected for.

Thanks

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Now you are asking for the impossible.

  • new species wont be on the dictionary and wont be described: so how will you find it?
  • rediscoveries of extinct species: iSpot does not store Red List Status, nor any changes in that.

Number of species and observations I can give you for the project “redlist”.
But the information you require is best obtained from Lize at the Red List site.

Some data are at
http://redlist.sanbi.org/changes.php and http://redlist.sanbi.org/stats.php

But most you will have to extract from the newsletters. see

http://www.sanbi.org/biodiversity-science/state-biodiversity/biodiversity-monitoring-assessment/custodians-rare-and-endan

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Such POWERFUL material Tony. A few moments spent at those links makes me realise how iSpot is so crucial to SANBI’s very existence

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May I please quote you on that …

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Wonders
I wonder if the Code Writers have been told how crucial their work is. I also wonder if the OU Executive have bothered to look at ‘their’ SANBI Connection.

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Thanks for the links Tony. They look helpful.

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sorry: I cannot find your email … please contact me.

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OFF THE POINT but Do you follow www.researchgate.net?
Wondering if you would find anything you could use here? https://www.researchgate.net/project/Ecology-and-ecophysiology-of-desert-plants-in-the-Succulent-Karoo-Namib-Negev-Sahara-and-other-drylands
THEN
While I’m about it - think we should link your amazing Erica pics with my Peninsula Erica Project - interested?
PS What are you looking for here? I’m no longer in Cape Town, but worked with lists of plants recorded at Cape Point (found by the Friends - just dumped) Also maps - we found lots of stuff down there and some that had never been recorded previously -
Just a few:
Massonia (I gave up on this one which is incorrectly agreed by experts)
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-africa/view/observation/299442/massonia-cape-point-2009
Achrolophia we were told, by experts that this wasn’t recorded at Cape Point so the ID was incorrect - Howard Langley agreed to our ID and gave us a location for another. Sadly, we didn’t keep our location secret - and the find was lost (dug out?) Seeds were offered on EBAY shortly after.
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-africa/view/observation/301640/acrolophia-cochlearis-cape-point-2006
Erica patersonii we had looked for this at the Point for years.
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-africa/view/observation/299298/erica-patersonii-cape-point-2009
Then Last but not Least - and thanks to a botanist in the US we were able to get make contact with Prix (some history in the comments)
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-africa/view/observation/299278/cytinus-capensis-cape-point-2010
There were others but not so dramatic.
Maybe you should speak to Corinne Merry for others that have been re-discovered on the Peninsula.
ALMOST FORGOT not recorded on iSpot Disa salteri at Cape Point - we got there when the flowers were looking grim - but I have pictures and contacts who will probably have GPS readings for the location.

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We can correctly ID your Massonia now - on iNaturalist, where the southern African dictionary November 2017 version is now loaded.
Unfortunately, the Sept 2014 version will be the best that there ever will be on iSpot …

Dam - I had intended putting my Erica patersonii localities form Cape Point onto iSpot, but never got around to it. My apologies: I will put them onto iNat however. This is an early seral species: so you need to be in veld that is about 3-4 years old to see it. It is gone by the time the veld is 7 years old.

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I’ll not be submitting any observations to iNat - pity you didn’t sort the Massonia out at the time instead of posting incorrect information for others to follow.
I see that there has recently been an observation of Erica pattersonii in the marsh at the junction of Link Road and Main Road

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We could not sort it out. iSpot is too incapable of it. We had the latest data, updated every six months since then. We dont flog a dead horse.
You can see more records of Erica patersonii if you visit iNat.