ChromoDB: chromosome counts database for vascular plants

Registro biológico
Última versión publicado por Botany Section, Department of Biology, Health and Environment (University of Barcelona) el oct 19, 2026 Botany Section, Department of Biology, Health and Environment (University of Barcelona)

Descargue la última versión de los datos como un Archivo Darwin Core (DwC-A) o los metadatos como EML o RTF:

Datos como un archivo DwC-A descargar 213.427 registros en Inglés (16 MB) - Frecuencia de actualización: cuando sea necesario
Metadatos como un archivo EML descargar en Inglés (30 KB)
Metadatos como un archivo RTF descargar en Inglés (21 KB)

Descripción

ChromoDB is a continuously curated database of published chromosome numbers (n, 2n) of vascular plants, developed at the Universitat de Barcelona from the experience of two earlier chromosome databases: CromoCat, for the vascular flora of the Catalan Countries, and DCDB, for tribe Delphinieae (Ranunculaceae). Each record represents a published chromosome-number result for one taxon and one bibliographic source and, when reported, one country of origin of the studied material. Records preserve the identification under which the count was published and link it to the corresponding taxon in Plants of the World Online (POWO), normally its currently accepted taxon. They also document the bibliographic source (with DOI when available) and a confidence level that distinguishes records verified against the original publication from records based on citations not yet verified. This dataset is a periodic, versioned release of the ChromoDB public database. It is deliberately stricter than the web database and includes only records meeting the taxonomic, bibliographic and data-quality criteria defined for the GBIF release. Every GBIF record links to its record page in ChromoDB, where corrections and updates are maintained continuously. The release contains 213,427 records for 64,207 taxa, 7,419 genera and 386 families, linked to 21,601 bibliographic references published between 1882 and 2026; 27.5% of the records have been verified against the original publication.

Registros

Los datos en este recurso de registros biológicos han sido publicados como Archivo Darwin Core(DwC-A), el cual es un formato estándar para compartir datos de biodiversidad como un conjunto de una o más tablas de datos. La tabla de datos del core contiene 213.427 registros.

también existen 2 tablas de datos de extensiones. Un registro en una extensión provee información adicional sobre un registro en el core. El número de registros en cada tabla de datos de la extensión se ilustra a continuación.

Occurrence (core)
213427
Reference 
213427
MeasurementOrFacts 
213427

Este IPT archiva los datos y, por lo tanto, sirve como repositorio de datos. Los datos y los metadatos del recurso están disponibles para su descarga en la sección descargas. La tabla versiones enumera otras versiones del recurso que se han puesto a disposición del público y permite seguir los cambios realizados en el recurso a lo largo del tiempo.

Versiones

La siguiente tabla muestra sólo las versiones publicadas del recurso que son de acceso público.

¿Cómo referenciar?

Los usuarios deben citar este trabajo de la siguiente manera:

Simon J, Bosch M, Goncalves E, Blanché C (2026). ChromoDB: chromosome counts database for vascular plants. Version 2.3. Botany Section, Department of Biology, Health and Environment (University of Barcelona). Occurrence dataset. https://doi.org/10.15470/ninpvc

Derechos

Los usuarios deben respetar los siguientes derechos de uso:

El publicador y propietario de los derechos de este trabajo es Botany Section, Department of Biology, Health and Environment (University of Barcelona). Esta obra está bajo una licencia Creative Commons de Atribución/Reconocimiento (CC-BY 4.0).

Registro GBIF

Este recurso ha sido registrado en GBIF con el siguiente UUID: 58dd7802-12e3-47c4-af69-90d440fc8305.  Botany Section, Department of Biology, Health and Environment (University of Barcelona) publica este recurso y está registrado en GBIF como un publicador de datos avalado por GBIF Spain.

Palabras clave

Occurrence; chromosome numbers; chromosome counts; plant cytogenetics; karyology; polyploidy; vascular plants; data curation; literature-based data; taxonomy; bibliographic traceability; POWO; ChromoDB

Contactos

Joan Simon
  • Proveedor De Los Metadatos ●
  • Originador ●
  • Punto De Contacto
  • Associate Professor
Universitat de Barcelona
08028 Barcelona
Barcelona
ES
Maria Bosch
  • Originador
  • Associate Professor
Universitat de Barcelona
08028 Barcelona
Barcelona
ES
Estefany Goncalves
  • Originador
  • Assistant Professor
Universitat de Barcelona
08028 Barcelona
Barcelona
ES
Cèsar Blanché
  • Originador
  • Full Professor
Universitat de Barcelona
08028 Barcelona
Barcelona
ES

Cobertura geográfica

Global. In this release, geographic information corresponds to the country of origin of the studied material as reported in the original publication; records are not georeferenced and no coordinates are provided. The country of origin is available for 71,864 records (33.7%) from 172 countries. Most records without a country derive from classic compilations, notably Fedorov (1969), which do not report the origin of the material; the country is generally recovered when a record is verified against the original publication (97.2% of verified records include it, compared with 9.6% of unverified ones).

Coordenadas límite Latitud Mínima Longitud Mínima [-90, -180], Latitud Máxima Longitud Máxima [90, 180]

Cobertura taxonómica

Vascular plants (Tracheophyta): lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. The release includes 386 families, 7,419 genera and 64,207 taxa; 197,076 records refer to species and 16,351 to infraspecific taxa. Records identified only at genus level are not included in this release.

Filo Tracheophyta (vascular plants)
Familia Asteraceae, Poaceae, Fabaceae, Brassicaceae, Ranunculaceae, Rosaceae, Orchidaceae, Lamiaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Apiaceae

Cobertura temporal

Fecha Inicial / Fecha Final 1882-01-01 / 2026-10-10

Datos del proyecto

ChromoDB is a long-term project of the Botany Section of the Universitat de Barcelona (research group BioC-GReB; Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat, IRBio) aimed at the continuous curation of published chromosome numbers of vascular plants. It derives from CromoCat, a chromosome database of the vascular flora of the Catalan Countries maintained for more than 25 years, which distinguished counts made on material from the region (Cro-In) from counts of the same taxa based on material from elsewhere (Cro-Out). The progressive growth of Cro-Out into a large body of worldwide data made the move to global coverage natural. Other antecedents of the group are DCDB, a worldwide chromosome database of tribe Delphinieae (Ranunculaceae) started in the late 1990s, and CromoPar, an international project on the chromosome diversity of the flora of Paraguay. Rather than aggregating as many counts as possible, the project aims to progressively transform scattered and heterogeneous literature data into records that are taxonomically updated, bibliographically traceable and scientifically reusable, and to make the degree of curation of each record explicit.

Título ChromoDB – The Global Chromosome Number Project
Identificador https://chromodb.net
Fuentes de Financiación ChromoDB currently has no dedicated funding and is maintained by the authors as part of their research activity. Between 2020 and 2024, work on CromoCat, the chromosome module of the Biodiversity Data Bank of Catalonia (Banc de Dades de Biodiversitat de Catalunya), was supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Departament d'Acció Climàtica, Alimentació i Agenda Rural) through annual technical-assistance contracts with the Universitat de Barcelona. The research group was also supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Support for Research Groups programme (AGAUR, 2021 SGR 00315).
Descripción del área de estudio The project focuses on chromosome-count data for vascular plants at global scale, based on published scientific literature.
Descripción del diseño ChromoDB is organised in several layers with different functions: (1) an internal curation database that includes records at different stages of taxonomic, bibliographic and documentary review; (2) a public, continuously updated web database (https://database.chromodb.net) with search tools, record pages, bibliography, data-quality indicators and summary dashboards; (3) periodic, versioned releases to GBIF, restricted to records meeting the taxonomic, bibliographic and data-quality criteria defined for each release; and (4) thematic curated datasets and syntheses on specific families, genera, journals or series. Each record published in GBIF links to its page in the ChromoDB web database, which remains the reference source for corrections and updates. Users can report errors or send comments through the contact form of the ChromoDB website.

Personas asociadas al proyecto:

Métodos de muestreo

Data were not obtained by field sampling but compiled from published sources: original papers, chromosome-number series (e.g. IAPT/IOPB Chromosome Data and regional series such as those published in Lagascalia, Flora Mediterranea, Bocconea and Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid), classic compilations (e.g. Fedorov 1969; Index to Plant Chromosome Numbers) and other databases (e.g. CCDB). For each record, the provenance (the compilation through which it first entered the database) is kept and updated when the original publication is checked. Chromosome numbers are included when the source explicitly reports an n or 2n value; ChromoDB does not itself convert genome-size, flow-cytometry or other indirect measurements into chromosome numbers. Values are retained as reported in the source, including approximate counts (e.g. “ca. 60”) and other notation used by the authors. The derivation of the chromosome number is recorded internally in ChromoDB. Records whose chromosome number is classified as inferred under the INFERRED: CL category are excluded from this GBIF release. A record represents one published chromosome-number result for one taxon, one bibliographic source and, when reported, one country of origin of the material. When a publication reports several populations of the same taxon from the same country with the same result, they are represented by a single record; separate records are created when the source, taxon, chromosome result or country differ. Notes from the source or from the curation process (e.g. counts reported as somatic numbers by Fedorov, or counts reassigned by later authors) are given in occurrenceRemarks.

Área de Estudio Global and taxonomic in scope: published chromosome numbers of vascular plants of all regions, from the early cytological literature to the present.
Control de Calidad Taxonomy. The identification under which each chromosome count was published is retained separately from its current taxonomic interpretation and is exported as verbatimIdentification. Each record is independently reconciled against POWO/WCVP; scientificName and acceptedNameUsage represent the taxon selected through this reconciliation, normally the currently accepted taxon, while acceptedNameUsageID links directly to the corresponding POWO record. Family, genus, taxonomic rank and taxonomic status are derived from the same POWO/WCVP taxonomic backbone. Minor orthographic or nomenclatural variants of published names may be normalised when the correspondence is unambiguous, whereas differences that could imply a distinct taxonomic interpretation are retained. Taxonomic assignments are reviewed against the POWO/WCVP information available at the time of curation and are updated when subsequent taxonomic review requires it. Bibliography. Each record is linked to a structured bibliographic reference (authors, year, title, journal or other source, volume, pages, DOI or URL). References follow APA style; journal titles are standardised following Botanico-Periodicum-Huntianum for older titles and the ISSN Portal for recent ones. Confidence level. ChromoDB uses a five-grade confidence scale: (1) Original verified, checked against the original publication; (2) Trusted source, taken from a reliable secondary source; (3) Unverified citation, citation apparently correct but not yet checked; (4) Review required, discrepancies or incomplete data; (5) Discarded/invalid, confirmed errors, which are not published. This release includes grade 1 (58,666 records, 27.5%) and grade 3 (154,761 records, 72.5%); the grade of each record is given in measurementRemarks. Inclusion criterion for this release. Records are included in the GBIF release only when they contain a chromosome number (n or 2n), a linked bibliographic reference and an assigned confidence level, and when their taxonomic identification has been reviewed against POWO. A POWO identifier and a corresponding taxon in the POWO/WCVP taxonomic backbone used for the release are required. Records explicitly flagged during taxonomic curation as not found in POWO or resolved only at a higher taxonomic level are excluded, as are incompletely resolved identifications that cannot be assigned reliably to a POWO taxon. Records classified under the INFERRED: CL count-derivation category are also excluded from this release. Hybrids recognised in POWO may be included when they meet the same criteria. Records not meeting these requirements may remain available in the continuously curated ChromoDB database but are not included in the GBIF release.

Descripción de la metodología paso a paso:

  1. 1) Compilation of chromosome-number reports from original publications, series, compilations and databases, recording the provenance of each record. 2) Recording of the taxon identification used in the source, the chromosome number (n or 2n) as reported and, when available, the country of origin of the studied material. The identification used in the source is retained in ChromoDB and exported to Darwin Core as verbatimIdentification; minor orthographic corrections and standardisation of author abbreviations may be applied when they do not alter the taxonomic interpretation. 3) Collapsing of equivalent populations into single records when taxon, bibliographic source, chromosome result and country are identical. 4) Independent taxonomic reconciliation of the published identification against Plants of the World Online (POWO) and the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP). The taxon selected through this reconciliation is exported as scientificName and acceptedNameUsage, and acceptedNameUsageID provides the corresponding POWO identifier. 5) Bibliographic standardisation and, whenever possible, verification of the chromosome record against the original publication; assignment of a confidence level documenting the degree of verification. 6) Selection of records meeting the GBIF inclusion criteria, mapping to Darwin Core and publication through the IPT of GBIF Spain. Corrections and additions are maintained continuously in ChromoDB and incorporated into subsequent GBIF releases.

Referencias bibliográficas

  1. Simon J, Bosch M, Blanché C (2023) CromoCat: Chromosome Database of the Vascular Flora of the Catalan Countries—25 years. In: Garcia S, Nualart N (Eds) Plant Genomic and Cytogenetic Databases. Methods in Molecular Biology 2703. Humana, New York, 131–160. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3389-2_11
  2. Bosch M, López-Pujol J, Blanché C, Simon J (2023) DCDB: Chromosome Database of Tribe Delphinieae (Ranunculaceae): Structure, Exploitation, and Recent Development. In: Garcia S, Nualart N (Eds) Plant Genomic and Cytogenetic Databases. Methods in Molecular Biology 2703. Humana, New York, 173–192. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3389-2_13
  3. Simón J, Franco D, Fernández V, Soloaga M, Daviña J, Honfi A, Rovira AM, Molero J (2000) Proyecto CROMOPAR: estado actual de conocimientos de la diversidad cromosómica de la flora paraguaya. II Jornadas de Biología del Mercosur, Asunción (Paraguay).

Metadatos adicionales

Record counts differ between the ChromoDB web database and this GBIF release because each layer applies different inclusion criteria to the same curated database. The web database is updated several times a week and may include records that do not meet the criteria defined for the GBIF release, including records lacking a POWO taxon identifier, incompletely resolved identifications, and other records retained for curation but excluded from the current release. GBIF releases are periodic and include only records meeting the taxonomic, bibliographic, confidence-level and count-derivation criteria described in the Methods section. The temporal coverage refers to the publication years of the sources, not to dates of collection of the studied material.

Agradecimientos
Introducción
Primeros pasos
Propósito
Descripción de mantenimiento ChromoDB is under continuous curation. The web database is updated several times a week; new GBIF versions are released periodically as additional records are taxonomically reconciled and bibliographically verified.
Identificadores alternativos 10.15470/ninpvc
58dd7802-12e3-47c4-af69-90d440fc8305
https://ipt.gbif.es/resource?r=chromodb