Long Database Report |
Corresponding author: John Janssen ( john.janssen@wur.nl ) Academic editor: Melisa A. Giorgis
© 2023 John Janssen, Erik Houtepen, André van Proosdij, Stephan Hennekens.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Janssen J, Houtepen E, van Proosdij A, Hennekens S (2023) CACTUS – Vegetation database of the Dutch Caribbean Islands. Vegetation Classification and Survey 4: 69-74. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.101114
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The vegetation database CACTUS (registered in GIVD under SA-00-004) aims to bring together all plot-based relevés from the Dutch Caribbean Islands that are available from literature, unpublished resources, and recent field surveys. The database currently contains 2,701 vegetation descriptions. The database is used for vegetation classification, to investigate vegetation change over time, to assist in the planning of vegetation surveys, as a source for plant species distribution maps, and to inform nature conservation and policy.
Taxonomic references:
Caribbean region, islands, Neotropics, plant species, syntaxonomy, vegetation, vegetation database, vegetation plot
In the Caribbean region, six islands form a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Three of these are independent countries (Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten), while the other three are special municipalities of The Netherlands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, Saba). They are situated in the chain of islands known as the Lesser Antilles, in a region where the prevailing so-called trade winds are blowing from an eastnortheast direction. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao are situated close to the coast of Venezuela, and – because of their position toward the trade winds – are called the Leeward Antilles (from the perspective of Dutch sailors). Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius and Saba are situated at a latitude approximately 5.5 degrees further north, and are known in the Netherlands as the Windward Antilles. The Leeward Islands are situated in a region with a dry, semi-arid tropical climate, in the rain-shade of the mountain chain at the northern coast of the South-American continent. The Windward Islands have a subtropical climate, with much higher precipitation, and are in a region that experiences hurricanes in the autumn. On all islands rainfall depends strongly on the altitude. The highest (volcanic) mountains are found on the islands Saba (887 m) and Sint Eustatius (601 m). On these mountains rain forests are found. The highest point in the leeward islands is the Sint-Christoffelberg on Curaçao (375 m). The soil of the islands has mainly three types of origin: volcanic soils, limestone soils and – on Curaçao – the Knip formation, consisting of deep water sediments of siliceous deposits. Besides these main soils, alluvial soils and recent marine sediments are also found.
The six islands are situated within one of the world hotspots for biodiversity: the Caribbean Hotspot (
The vegetation database is called CACTUS, an acronym for Caribbean Communities Turboveg System. It is available in both the database systems Turboveg2 and Turboveg3 (
Fig.
The majority of relevés were recorded on the Leeward Islands, especially on Curaçao and Aruba. Fig.
The database CACTUS uses a complete species list with synonyms (vascular plants only) for the six islands. The taxonomy is based on
Distribution of relevés in the CACTUS database (indicated by yellow dots) on the Leeward Islands Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and the Windward Islands Saba, Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten/Saint Martin. The position of each island in the wider Caribbean region is indicated by a red dot in the small map in the corner of each island map.
Examples of vegetation types represented in the CACTUS database: A. dune shrubland on Aruba, B. scree communities with the endemic palm Sabal antillensis on Curaçao, C. limestone shrubland with Stenostomum acutatum and Jacquinia arborea on Aruba, D. dry tropical forest with Bursera simaruba on Sint Maarten, E. secondary rain forest on the slopes of the Quill volcano Sint Eustatius, and F. Elfin forest dominated by Freziera undulata on Saba.
Currently, the database is used in different ways. First of all, several of the sites with older historical relevés have been resurveyed or are planned to be resurveyed. Such studies have been carried out for the Christoffel National Park on Curaçao, for the island of Saba, parts of Aruba, while a resurvey of Sint Eustatius and Bonaire is scheduled for 2023 and 2024; the results from these studies have not been published yet. Resampling of historical plots provides an indication of vegetation change and provides insight into the processes that drive vegetation succession. This type of knowledge is crucial for the prediction of future vegetation developments, caused by changes in climate, management or land use.
Secondly, we aim to use the data set to provide a plot-based, objective, and quantitative overview of the plant communities recorded on the six islands, which will be related to classification schemes for regions with a similar climate and flora (for example the north-coast of Colombia and Venezuela) and the wider Caribbean region.
Thirdly, the vegetation database forms an important source for the creation of plant species distribution maps, which are available at http://speciesdistribution.dcbd.nl/. These maps are updated regularly, in case new data are added to the CACTUS database. Plant species distribution maps are important for Red List assessments of species. For this purpose, the relevé data from CACTUS are combined with the distribution data for species from herbaria, photographs, literature and other databases. The plant species distribution database currently contains more than 50,000 unique observations.
Finally, the database can be used directly to inform nature conservation and policy, for example, to indicate priority areas for conservation or for environmental impact assessment studies. An example of this is the nature-inclusive development vision for Bonaire (
The establishment of the CACTUS database and its continuing development and use forms part of a worldwide initiative that aims to base nature policy and management on evidence and data (
J.J. and E.H. initiated and maintain the database, A.v.P. initiated and maintains the species list, S.H. supports with all technical aspects and the related website.
We thank everybody who helped with providing data, collecting data, digitizing data, constructing of the species list. The development of the database was funded during different projects, among which some financed by NLBIF (project 2020.003), the WUR KB-program Nature Inclusive Society (KB36-005-016), and the WOT-IN program.