Biodiversity Data Journal :
Data Paper (Biosciences)
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Corresponding author: Seikan Kurata (kangrookangaeru@gmail.com), Diego T. Vasques (dtvasques@gmail.com)
Academic editor: Jörg Holetschek
Received: 18 Aug 2021 | Accepted: 21 Sep 2021 | Published: 27 Sep 2021
© 2021 Seikan Kurata, Naoko Ishikawa, Diego Vasques, Masayuki Saito, Osamu Kurashima, Motomi Ito
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:
Kurata S, Ishikawa N, Vasques DT, Saito MU, Kurashima O, Ito M (2021) Flora of herbaceous and arboreous plants in Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo, Japan. Biodiversity Data Journal 9: e73177. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.9.e73177
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Recent studies revealed that green spaces in urban areas are critical for conservation of native biodiversity and that assessment of the present flora of green spaces in urban areas is critical for protection of the native biodiversity. The Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo embraces a relevant green area, located in a highly urbanised area in Tokyo Metropolis (35.66 N 139.68 E, Japan). The total area of this Campus is 25.4 ha, from which, 4.5 ha are covered by vegetation. Although intense urbanisation can be observed around the Campus, new insect species had been reported for the Campus area, suggesting that the biodiversity on the Campus still demands some attention. Differently from fauna surveys, no flora survey has been done for more than 30 years on the Campus. In this study, we have extensively surveyed the plants diversity on the Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo, aiming for an update of the plants list on this green urban area in Tokyo.
The survey covered all herbaceous and arboreous plants growing wild on the Campus. Garden plants were excluded in this survey because these plants were supposed to be cultivated. The final dataset contained, in total, 324 taxa, from which 234 were herbaceous plants and 90 were arboreous plants. The top three taxa are as follows: Poaceae (38 taxa), Asteraceae (34 taxa) and Rosaceae (14 taxa), respectively. This is the first update to the Flora of the Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo in 30 years and represent an important contribution to conservation of native species in the Tokyo metropolis.
arboreous plants, herbaceous plants, plant survey, urban area
Assuming a direct correlation between urbanisation and development, urban development can lead to biotic homogenisation for native plant species (
People living in cities create green spaces (e.g. parks, pavement, gardens and lawns, road and railroad verges, vacant lots and roofs) as artificial habitats (
All specimens were collected in the Komaba I Campus of University of Tokyo, Komaba, Meguro City, Tokyo, Japan. The total area of the Campus is 25.4 ha, from which 20.9 ha consist of buildings and several athletic fields (http://www.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/info/about/facts/lands/index.html, accessed on June 2021). The remaining 4.5 ha are covered by vegetation, being used as our investigation site. Annual temperature in Tokyo varies between 5.2°C and 26.4°C (January to August annual average from 1981 to 2010), with mean annual precipitation of 1,598.2 mm (Japan Meteorogical Agency, https://www.data.jma.go.jp/obd/stats/etrn/view/nml_sfc_ym.php?prec_no=44&block_no=47662, accessed in June 2021).
Plants with reproductive structures were collected between April 2017 and May 2019 at different times of the year. Collection was interrupted between December and February, when few plants with reproductive structures are observed. Sampling was exhaustive and performed once a month during daytime, virtually covering all vegetation areas on the Campus. Two individuals were collected for each taxon, one of those being preserved and registered at the Komaba Museum, University of Tokyo, Meguro City, Japan (KMUT). The whole plant body was collected (including roots), with the exception of large individuals (e.g. Cirsium vulgare (Savi) Ten. and Alcea rosea L.), from which only shoots were collected. For fern specimens, rhizomes and fertile leaves were collected to allow identification. Collected samples were immediately mounted as vouchers and preserved at room temperature using humidity-absorbing sheets. Vouchers’ deposit numbers were issued by KMUT.
Plant species were identified according to The Handbook of Common Grasses (
The survey was performed at the Komaba I Campus of University of Tokyo, Komaba, Meguro City, Tokyo, Japan. The Campus is in a residential area, adjacent to the huge business district of Shibuya and relatively close by other green spaces in Tokyo, such as the Yoyogi Park, Shinjuku Gyoen, the Imperial Palace and Ueno Park (Fig.
35.658 and 35.664 Latitude; 139.681 and 139.689 Longitude.
The survey covers all herbaceous plants which grow wild in the Campus and arboreous plants which grow wild or are cultivated. Garden plants were excluded in this survey because these plants were supposed to be cultivated. The dataset contains in total 324 taxa: 234 herbaceous plants and 90 arboreous plants (Suppl. material
Pie chart describing the diversity of taxonomic families found on the Flora survey on Komaba Campus of the Univeristy of Tokyo. Families were identified under APG IV (2016). Numbers on the chart indicate the number of taxa identified under each family. In total, 99 different family taxa were identified in this survey.
Date range: April 2017 – May 2019.
Column label | Column description |
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parentNameUsage | Genus name |
occurrenceID | Unique occurrence ID |
modified | The most recent date-time on which the resource was changed |
language | Thelanguage of the resource |
basisOfRecord | Type of the records |
acceptedNameUsage | Same as “scientificName” |
scientificName | Scientific name for the species |
kingdom | Taxonomical kingdom |
class | Taxonomical class |
order | Taxonomical order |
family | Taxonomical family |
genus | Taxonomical genus |
specificEpithet | Specific epithet for the species |
infraspecificEpithet | Infraspecific ranks |
identificationRemarks | Comments or notes about the identification |
taxonRank | Most specific identified rank for the taxon |
scientificNameAuthorship | Author name for the species |
taxonomicStatus | Status for scientific name usage |
recordedBy | Collector name for the specimens |
country | Country of collection |
stateProvince | Province of collection |
municipality | City of collection |
locality | Other location data |
minimumElevationInMeters | Minimum elevation (metres) |
maximumElevationInMeters | Maximum elevation (metres) |
decimalLatitude | Decimal latitude |
decimalLongitude | Decimal longitude |
identifiedBy | Determination authors |
recordNumber | Specimen number |
license | Creative Commons licence |
eventDate | The verbatim original representation of the date and time information for an Event |
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters | The horizontal distance from the given decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude in metres |
List of herbaceous and arboreous plants list in the Komaba Campus of the University of Tokyo, recorded in 2017 – 2019.