A protocol for the systematic documentation of the ecology of Cape plants

A plea is made for the more systematic collection of ecological data with herbarium specimens, and for the inclusion of descriptive ecological data with the species descriptions in monographs, revisions, floras and electronic publications. Ecological data are becoming increasingly important for conservation policies, for evaluating the possible impacts of climatic and hydrological change, and for investigating the evolution and co-existence of the remarkably large number of species in the Cape Floristic Region. Ecological data are divided into habitat data that have to be collected in the field (largely micro-habitat data), those data that can be inferred from geographical information systems overlays (mostly climatic data), and biological data which are dependent on targetted observations (e.g. pollination, dispersal and fire biology) and which generally cannot be made for each herbarium collection. Brief protocols for the collection of the microhabitat data are suggested for the Cape Floristic Region, and some examples are given of the ecological descriptive information that should go with species descriptions.