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The flora of Tropical Asia is among the richest in the world, yet the actual diversity is estimated to be much higher than previously reported. Myanmar and Thailand are adjacent countries that together occupy more than the half the area of continental Tropical Asia. This geographic area is diverse ecologically, ranging from cool-temperate to tropic...
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In the course of our intensive floristic inventories for the flora of Myanmar, a new species of the genus Sapria
(Rafflesiaceae), S. myanmarensis Nob. Tanaka, Nagam., Tagane & M.M. Aung is described and photographed. In addition, S. himalayana Griff. f. albovinosa Bänziger & B. Hansen is newly recorded in the country. A key to the species of Sapria...
Citations
... It is distributed throughout the temperate northern hemisphere, occurring in at least 56 countries (Holm et al., 1997; Chambers et al., 2008). However YuIto et al. (2014) showed that Reed mace is widespread in Myanmar and Thailand. This plant prefers a soil pH of greater than 5.5, and is absent from more acidic soils. ...
The Vulnerability Assessment results highlighted a number of threats to the wetlands, including increased risk of floods and drought as a result of climate change, loss of habitat due to agricultural encroachment, illegal hunting and unsustainable fishing methods, pollution resulting from agricultural run-off and poor sanitation, and invasive species.
In 2020-2021, Biodiversity And Nature Conservation implemented a detailed climate change vulnerability assessment of Pyu lake, Tada U Township and Paleik lake, Kyeik Se Township, in collaboration with the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT). 7 villages around Pyu lake and 4 villages near Paleik lake are depending on these two lakes mainly for agricultures. Mandalay Region has a mostly flat topography and is characterized by a hot, dry climate. Vulnerability relating to water is the predominant challenge in the villages.
The main objectives of the assessment were to conduct Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments for Pyu and Paleik Lakes, assessing the vulnerability of livelihoods, ecosystems and species to climate threats, and work with stakeholders to develop adaptation options to mitigate identified risks. The assessment incorporated community workshops and expert consultations with WWT and IUCN, to predict the potential implications that climate change may have on habitats, speices and livelihoods. In this assessment, species attention was paid to the knowledge of both men and women.
The assessment shows that decision-makers in Pyu and Paleik Lakes need to plan for variable rain, with increases concentrated in the monsoon season, less groundwater availability in dry areas, warmer temperatures, more frequent extreme heat days, with associated risk of drought, crop and livestock loss, and risks for human health. Projections for future climate at Pyu and Paleik Lakes were taken from the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal (CCKP). The SSP 5-8.5 ensemble model for Mandalay Region projects a significant rise in the average count of days when the maximum temperature surpassed 40°C; from a reference level of just over three in April to 14.6, ie, half of the month. March, May and June also show a higher number of extremely hot days. All of the climate models predict a rise in this variable, though the SSP 5-8.5 scenario predicts the highest. The reainy-season could be subject to heavier rains, with an average prediction of about 100mm more rain in heavy deluges in June, or a 46% increase in rainfall in the heaviest events, and 20-40% increase for the following months through to December, although the overall volume or rain falls steadily over that period.
The assessment suggests that open water with aquatic plants are the most important for aquatic species including fish, water lilies, and migratory waterbird species that depend on them. Increased fertilizer and pesticide has been leading to decrease dissolved oxygen in the water and affecting fish in the area. Seasonal emergent and marginal vegetation were found to be more resilient to future effects of climate change. Extremely heat may affect the habitat when the temperature increases. An increase in precipitation does not cause any threat according to historical observations from locals.
Community members observed that non-climate impacts such as encroachment for illegal fishing and aquatic harvesting, sedimentation, bird poaching and invasive species have impacted both Paleik and Pyu lakes. The majority of climate change coping mechanisms suggested by community group were based on home business such as making Myanmar traditional snack with local products; making chairs with palms and making bamboo products as alternative livelihood to rice farming and increasing water security through increased water pumping for irrigation.
In addressing the considerations identified above for habitats, species and livelihoods/community vulnerability, a number of management recommendations have been made to support climate change adaptation and reduce baseline threats. Designation and developing collaboratively managed wetland conservation areas (Ramsar site/ EAAFP network site) that will benefit globally important wetland biodiversity and fill an important gap in Myanmar’s protected area network. And the introduction of sustainable rice farming practices based on SRP standards and sustainable community-managed fisheries, including fish conservation zones in Paleik will address poverty, biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change.
... Species lists of aquatic flora and fauna are available from earlier surveys in Inlay Lake . Around 30 species of aquatic macrophytes have been listed (Ito and Barfod, 2014;Lansdown, 2012;Nair, 1960), but no information about abundances exists. The fish community consists of 17 endemic and 15 widespread fish species (Kullander, 2012). ...
Inlay Lake is the second largest natural lake in Myanmar. Located in Shan State, in the eastern part of the country, it is a known biodiversity hotspot. The lake is negatively affected by an increasing local human population and rapid growth in both agriculture and tourism. In recent decades, several studies have listed faunistic and floristic groups in Inlay Lake, but there is still a general lack of knowledge about the aquatic macrophyte and phytoplankton community composition and abundance, and their interactions. To fill this knowledge gap, field surveys of biological and physical and chemical parameters were carried out in the period 2014–2017. They show that Inlay Lake is a shallow, clear water and calcareous lake, with nutrient concentrations indicating mesotrophic-eutrophic conditions. However, close to the shore, nutrient concentrations are generally higher, reflecting pollution from inflowing rivers, shoreline villages and floating gardens. Both the richness and abundance of aquatic macrophytes in Inlay Lake were high, with several species forming extensive stands in most of the lake over the whole survey period. Total phytoplankton and cyanobacterial biomass were low, but cyanobacteria included toxin-producing strains of Microcystis, suggesting that cyanobacterial and total phytoplankton biomass need to be kept low to avoid potentially harmful cyanobacterial blooms. Submerged macrophyte abundance and phytoplankton biomass were inversely correlated in the heavily vegetated northern lake area. Our survey suggests a great importance of the submerged macrophytes to the general water quality and the clear water state in Inlay Lake. Maintaining high macrophyte abundances should therefore be a goal in management strategies, both for Inlay Lake and other lakes in Myanmar. It is highly desirable to include macrophytes and phytoplankton in the lake monitoring in Myanmar.
... Efforts to build natural history collections have increased in recent years (Ito and Barfod, 2014) and remote sensing studies of forest cover provide overviews of change for a select few ecosystem types, such as broadly defined tropical forests and mangroves (Songer et al., 2009;Webb et al., 2014;De Alban et al., 2018;De Alban et al., 2020). Local descriptive studies of ecosystems are also beginning to emerge (Oo and Koike, 2015;Khaing et al., 2019). ...
Myanmar is highly biodiverse, with more than 16,000 plant, 314 mammal, 1131 bird, 293 reptile, and 139 amphibian species. Supporting this biodiversity is a variety of natural ecosystems—mostly undescribed—including tropical and subtropical forests, savannas, seasonally inundated wetlands, extensive shoreline and tidal systems, and alpine ecosystems. Although Myanmar contains some of the largest intact natural ecosystems in Southeast Asia, remaining ecosystems are under threat from accelerating land use intensification and over-exploitation. In this period of rapid change, a systematic risk assessment is urgently needed to estimate the extent and magnitude of human impacts and identify ecosystems most at risk to help guide strategic conservation action. Here we provide the first comprehensive conservation assessment of Myanmar's natural terrestrial ecosystems using the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems categories and criteria. We identified 64 ecosystem types for the assessment, and used models of ecosystem distributions and syntheses of existing data to estimate declines in distribution, range size, and functioning of each ecosystem. We found that more than a third (36.9%) of Myanmar's area has been converted to anthropogenic ecosystems over the last 2–3 centuries, leaving nearly half of Myanmar's ecosystems threatened (29 of 64 ecosystems). A quarter of Myanmar's ecosystems were identified as Data Deficient, reflecting a paucity of studies and an urgency for future research. Our results show that, with nearly two-thirds of Myanmar still covered in natural ecosystems, there is a crucial opportunity to develop a comprehensive protected area network that sufficiently represents Myanmar's terrestrial ecosystem diversity.
... With its sloping leaf sheath (Fig. 1C), the specimen is within the circumscription of N. kingii in the key to the species in Haynes (2001), as it was annotated by L. Triest in 1991 (Fig. 1A). Ito & Barfod (2014), in their preliminary checklist of aquatic plants of Myanmar and Thailand, treated this specimen under the wider concept of N. indica (Willd.) Cham., that includes N. kingii (de Wilde, 1962), but here I follow Triest's (1988) and Cook's (1996) concept of N. kingii, in which this species is distinguished from N. indica in leaf sheath morphology. ...
The genus Najas (Hydrocharitaceae) was treated for the Flora of Thailand in 2001 with four species recorded. Through field and herbarium observations, it is proposed to exclude one of these four species, N. minor. A further species, N. marina, is reported for the first time. An updated key to the species is provided.
... Distribution for each species follows Ito and Barfod (2014). ...
... Chromosome researches for aquatic monocots of Myanmar were reviewed with a broad focus on Myanmar and related floristic regions, i.e., the Indian, the Indochina, and the Sino-Japanes floristic regions. The focal species include 45 non-hybrid aquatic monocots listed in Ito and Barfod (2014), Ito et al. (2014a) as well as well-investigated two inter-specific Potamogeton hybrids (Ito et al. 2014a). Initial literature search was carried out with Fedorov (1969) as well as Index to Plant Chromosome Numbers (Missouri Botanical Garden, http://mobot.mobot.org/W3T/Search/ipcn.html), followed by extensive literature review with original references. ...
... In order to revise the flora of Myanmar, a decade-long continuous inventory has been conducted by Japanese botanists (Tanaka 2005), which thus far partly contributed a local checklist (Mt. Popa: Tanaka et al. 2006) and a taxon-specific checklist (aquatic plants: Ito and Barfod 2014). ...
AbstractMyanmar (Burma) constitutes a significant component of the Indo-Myanmar biodiversity hotspot, with elements of the Indian, the Indochina, and the Sino-Japanese floristic regions, yet thus far only a few reliable sources of the country's flora have been available. As a part of a contribution for the floristic inventory of Myanmar, since it is important in a floristic survey to obtain as much information as possible, in addition to previous two reports, here we present three more chromosome counts in the aquatic monocots of Myanmar: Limnocharis
flava with 2n = 20, Sagittaria
trifolia with 2n = 22 (Alismataceae), and Potamogeton
distinctus × Potamogeton
nodosus with 2n = 52 (Potamogetonaceae); the third one is new to science. A brief review of cytological researches in the floristic regions' 45 non-hybrid aquatic monocots plus well investigated two inter-specific hybrids that are recorded in Myanmar is given, indicating that the further works with a focus on species in Myanmar that has infra-specific chromosome variation in the floristic regions will address the precise evolutionary history of the aquatic flora of Myanmar.
... On the other hand, the known numerous inter-specific hybrids may cause a confusion, because the hybrids are in most cases difficult to recognize solely based on morphological investigation (Les et al. 2009). In Myanmar, although no natural Potamogeton hybrids have been reported, among the listed nine species and two synomyous ones by Kress et al. (2003) or six species by Ito and Barfod (2014) are Potamogeton
nodosus and Potamogeton
wrightii, both of which are known to hybridize with Potamogeton
distinctus in China (Du et al. 2010). Hence, taxonomic confusion might have occurred in the inventory of Potamogeton
distinctus in Myanmar with apparent hybridiｚations with the other broad-leaved long-petioled Potamogeton species. ...
... Both the only floristic checklist of Myanmar and the first aquatic plants checklist of Myanmar do not include this species but lists morphologically similar other broad-leaved long-petioled species, Potamogeton
nodosus Poir. and Potamogeton
wrightii Morong (Kress et al. 2003, Ito and Barfod 2014). Whereas the other reported Potamogeton species from Myanmar can be easily distinguished from Potamogeton
distinctus, e.g., by the shape of submerged or floating leaves, the two broad-leaved long-petioled Potamogeton can only be recognized with floral morphology because the reliable diagnostic character of Potamogeton
distinctus is the flower with two carpels, which is four-carpellate in the other species (Wiegleb 1990); this characteristic, of course, could not be applied to non-flowering specimens, which many of Potamogeton collections from Myanmar are. ...
AbstractIndo-China floristic region is among the 34 richest floristic regions of the world, and its plant diversity is still under investigation. Here we report a new record of an aquatic plant, Potamogeton
distinctus, from Myanmar, a part of the region, that is detected by means of DNA barcoding method. The molecular method further identified the other specimens as hybrids of Potamogeton: one is Potamogeton
×malainoides (Potamogeton
distinctus × Potamogeton
wrightii), and the other is Potamogeton
distinctus × Potamogeton
nodosus. The first of these was thus far genetically confirmed in China, but the parental combination of the hybrid in Myanmar was reciprocal to those reported from China. The second hybrid was also recorded from China, but the maternal lineage was revealed for the first time, in this case it was Potamogeton
distinctus. The present study showed that 1) nrITS is useful to distinguish closely related Potamogeton species as well as hybrids among them and 2) atpB-rbcL has higher utility than other frequently used plastid DNA markers. We thus propose nrITS and atpB-rbcL as DNA barcoding markers for future Potamogeton studies.
This report is performed by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), as part of the project Integrated Water Resources Management – Institutional Building and Training (IWRM), a cooperation between Department of Forest, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) and NIVA during the period 2014-2020. The project which is part of the Norwegian – Myanmar Bilateral Environment Programme, 2015-2023 has been funded by the Norwegian embassy in Yangon.
The purpose of the report is to assist experts undertaking aquatic macrophyte field surveys in Myanmar. In addition to a suggested field method for aquatic macrophytes, the report contains factsheets with short descriptions and photos of 40 aquatic macrophyte species in Myanmar, recorded in the period 2014-2020. These factsheets can be used as a supplement to other identifications keys and floras from the Asian region and serve as a “first identification step”. Hopefully, they will support more accurate and consistent species identification amongst field surveyors.
The aim of the present study was to give important and improved knowledge about aquatic biodiversity in the Moeyingyi Reservoir in Myanmar. The survey took place in November 2015 and included physical measurements, water chemistry, phytoplankton, and aquatic macrophytes. Moeyingyi is a very shallow and turbid lake, with low conductivity and varying nutrient conditions. Around 110 phytoplankton taxa were determined from Moeyingyi reservoir, however, most of the taxa were sporadically distributed. An important indicator group in the phytoplankton was the euglenoids. Other frequent species belonged to diatoms, desmids and other green algae. The phytoplankton biomass was low, likely caused by light imitation because of the high turbidity. In total, 18 species of aquatic macrophytes were recorded, dominated by species with floating leaves and free-floating species. Most of the species in these groups can survive in water with bad light conditions. The most abundant species in Moeyingy was the lotus Nelumbo nucifera, which make huge stands in some parts of the lake, probably only in areas with permanent water. Most of the species are native and common in Asia, only one invasive aquatic macrophyte, the water hyacinth Eichornia crassipes, appeared in Moeyingyi. Very few field surveys about aquatic macrophytes in lakes in Myanmar are published. The aquatic biodiversity and species abundance in lakes in tropic areas seem to vary throughout the year. To get a more complete overview of the aquatic biodiversity in Moeyingyi, we suggest visiting the lake again, preferably in the dry season. 4 keywords, Norwegian 4 keywords, English
The basalmost monocot genus Acorus is well-known for its use in traditional oriental medicine. It comprises the groups of A. calamus and A. gramineus. A recent study recognized three species in the latter group, A. gramineus, A. macrospadiceus, and A. tatarinowii. The material currently known as A. tatarinowii has been extensively studied as a source of various chemical compounds and for producing the first published genome of Acorus, which is important for understanding the origin and evolution of monocots. Using the data from morphology, anatomy, and biogeography, we argue that the type material of A. tatarinowii does not match the interpretation of the species name as adopted in the current literature and herbarium collections (to a taxon of the A. gramineus group from Southeast Asia) but rather belongs to the A. calamus group. Moreover, the name A. macrospadiceus also cannot be used because it was invalidly published. Under a narrow species concept, other appropriate species names should be found or proposed for the plants currently named A. tatarinowii and A. macrospadiceus. However, we discourage the use of a narrow species concept in the A. gramineus group as insufficiently justified and suggest recognizing a single polymorphic species, A. gramineus s.l., at least until a comprehensive taxonomic revision of the group is available. Apart from the presentation of our revised taxonomic framework, we update the geographical distributions of Acorus species in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.
Red or purple coloration of abaxial (lower) leaf surfaces is a taxonomically-widespread phenomenon that has evolved independently in multiple plant lineages. The trait has long been associated with deeply-shaded forest understory habitats, but also occurs in many taxa adapted to high light, including aquatic plants with floating leaves, and herbs that thrive in sun-exposed meadows, rocks, or cliff faces. We surveyed the literature for information related to the taxonomic and environmental distribution of plants displaying abaxial leaf reddening, the chemical structures and anatomical locations of pigments associated with abaxial leaf reddening (if known), and the physiological and ecological (e.g., defensive– anti-herbivory and anti-pathogenic) hypotheses proposed to explain their occurrence. We report examples of abaxial leaf reddening in more than 50 angiosperm families and 100 genera, as well as analogous coloration in some basal plant lineages (e.g., selaginellins in ventral surfaces of Selaginella microphylls, auronidins in ventral surfaces of liverwort thalli). Leaf-warming was one of the first hypotheses proposed for abaxial leaf reddening (19th century); while slight (1-2°C) warming effects were reported, few studies have since successfully corroborated these early results. Lee et al. (1979) proposed that abaxial red pigments back-scatter red-photons, maximizing light capture efficiency of the leaf in light-limited environments. This hypothesis was largely refuted by later studies. The photoprotection hypothesis is currently the most well-supported explanation for abaxial leaf reddening, whereby red pigments function to attenuate excess photons either directly incident on the abaxial surface of inclined/inverted leaves, or transmitted through adaxial cell layers. This function is beneficial in understory environments exposed to frequent high-light events (e.g., sunflecks, sungaps), as well as in high light environments or seasons. However, this case is far from “closed”, as photoprotective effects have only been shown for a few select species, and many ecological hypotheses (e.g., aposematism, leaf camouflage, undermining insect camouflage, defense from fungi, interference competition) have not been fully tested.
