Title

Monitoring records of plant species in the Hakone region of Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, Japan, 2001-2010

Running title: Monitoring of plants in Hakone

Authors

Takeshi OSAWA^1,2

1. National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, 3-1-3, Kannondai, Tsukuba city, Ibaraki pref, 305-8604, Japan.
2. Hakone Park Volunteer

E-mail addresses: arosawa@gmail.com

*:Corresponding author: TEL.:+81.78.803.8148; FAX.:+81.78.803.8199

Abstract

The monitoring of species occurrences is a crucial aspect of biodiversity conservation, and regional volunteerism can serve as a powerful tool in such endeavors. The Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park in the Hakone region of Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, boasts a volunteer association of approximately 100 members. These volunteers have monitored plant species occurrences from 2001 to the present along several hiking trails in the region. In this paper, I present the annual observation records of plant occurrences in Hakone from 2001 to 2010. This data set includes 1071 species of plants from 151 families. Scientific names follow the Y List. And this data set includes several threatened plant species. Data files are formatted based on the Darwin Core and Darwin Core Archives, which are defined by the Biodiversity Information Standards (BIS) or Biodiversity Information Standards Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG). Data files filled on required and some additional item on Darwin Core. The data set can download from author’s personal Web site as of July 2012. These data will soon be published for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) through GBIF Japan. All users can then access the data from the GBIF portal site.

Key words

Civil scientist, Darwin Core, GBIF, Hakone, monitoring, observation records, occurrences, threatened plant species, park volunteer, vascular plants

Introduction

The monitoring of regional species occurrences is one of the most important components of biodiversity conservation (Osawa and Inohara 2008), but available resources for such monitoring efforts are often limited. Thus, concentrating efforts on areas that harbor many threatened species [e.g., biodiversity hot spots (Myers et al. 2000) or protected areas such as national parks] is most effective. To this end, regional volunteers are extremely useful for conducting biodiversity monitoring as well as for increasing public perception of and involvement with conservation issues (Bell et al. 2008; Bonardi et al. 2011; Carrier and Bee-bee 2003; Sewell et al. 2010).

At present, 30 national parks have been established in Japan, and these areas are protected under national park laws. As a result, these parks may harbor higher biodiversity compared to other regions. Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park is one of the oldest national parks in Japan. The “Hakone region” of this park is located in the town of Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture and has been designated a biodiversity hot spot at the prefecture level (Tanaka 2005). Additionally, a 100-member park volunteer association in Hakone has monitored species occurrences of primarily plant species from 2001 to the present along several hiking trails in the region. These monitoring data include several threatened species, i.e., those assigned to the national Red List and/or the regional Red Data Book (Osawa and Inohara 2008).

This data paper presents plant species monitoring data collected in Hakone by the members of the Hakone Park Volunteer Association. Portions of this data set have already been used for studying the conservation biology of several plant species and in compiling a recently released flora list (Osawa and Inohara 2008). Here, I present time-series data of plant occurrences from 2001 to 2010. This data set is composed of observation records (i.e., a voucher for each record does not exist), but the data will be useful for conservation biology efforts (e.g., comparative studies between the past and present).

The data set consists of 1071 species of plants from 151 families, including several threatened plant species. Scientific names follow the Y List (http://bean.bio.chiba-u.jp/bgplants/ylist_srch_easy.html: accessed on 3 July 2012). Data files are formatted based on the Darwin Core and Darwin Core Archives, which are defined by the Biodiversity Information Standards (BIS) or the Biodiversity Information Standards Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) (http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/DarwinCore/WebHome; accessed on 3 July 2012). The data set can be downloaded from the author’s personal Web site (http://osawa.nomaki.jp/index.html; accessed on 3 July 2012) as of July 2012. These data will soon be published for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) through GBIF Japan. All users can then access the data from the GBIF portal site (http://www.gbif.org/).

Metadata

1. Title

Monitoring records of plant species in the Hakone region of Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, Japan, 2001-2010

2. Contributor

A. Dataset Owner

Hakone Park Volunteer

164, kyu-fudaba, moto-hakone, Hakone town, Kanagawa pref, 250-0522, Japan

B. Contact person

Takeshi OSAWA

Affiliation: National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences / Hakone Park Volunteer

Address: 3-1-3, Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki pref, 305-8604, Japan.

Phone: +81.29.838.8148

Email: arosawa@gmail.com

3. Geographic Information

A. Study area

The census was conducted at Hakone town, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan (Fig. 1). The climate is warm-temperate with mean annual precipitation of 3,228 mm and a mean annual temperature of 16.1°C (Osawa and Inohara 2008). Hakone have approximately 20 million tourists annually (Osawa and Inohara 2008).

B. Geographical Information

Hakone town is located within Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. The town was divided into six regions (Fig. 1b) by the Flora-Kanagawa Association to research local flora (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History 2001). This monitoring program was conducted along eight hiking trails in regions "Hakone-1, 2, and 4," which are located west of Hakone (Fig. 1b). Each trail is composed of a main pathway and several side paths. "Hakone-1" has three trails: 1) the Mt. Kintokiyama trail, which ascends to Mt. Kintoki and is dominated by forest edge and understory habitats; 2) the Kojiri-touge, which climbs Mt. Kojiri-touge and Mt. Kurotake and is also dominated by forest edge and understory habitats; and 3) the Sengokuhara hiking trail around the Sengokuhara wetland and along the Hayakawa River area, which is dominated by grassland habitats (Fig. 1c). "Hakone-2" has one trail, which comprises the western portion of the Ashinoko Lake trail that follows Ashinoko Lake and is dominated by forest edge and understory habitats (Fig. 1c). "Hakone 4" has four trails: 1) around the Hakone Visitor Center within a picnic area at Kojiri that is dominated by grassland habitats; 2) the Mt. Kamiyama and Mt. Komagatake trails, which climb Mt. Kamiyama and Mt. Komagatake, respectively, and are dominated by forest edge and understory habitats; 3) the Mt. Owakudani trail that ascends the Mt. Owakudani volcanic fume through a forest and is dominated by forest edge and understory habitats; and 4) the Yusakamichi hiking trail, which connects to the east side of Hakone along both forest edge and grassland habitats (Fig. 1c). Thus, the monitoring areas include several types of environments, such as mountainous areas, forest, wetland, river and lake riparian zones, and grassland areas. The approximate positions of the hiking trails are shown in Fig. 1c.

C. Geographical coordinates

(Geographic coordinate system, WGS84)

• West: 138.98°
• East: 139.1°
• North: 35.27°
• South: 35.19°

4. Temporal Coverage

A. Begin

2001

B. End

2010

5. Methods

A. Monitoring methods

Species occurrences were observed along eight hiking trails within the regions "Hakone-1," "Hakone-2," and "Hakone-4" in the town of Hakone (Fig. 1b). Observers walked along the hiking trails and recorded the plant species that they found, with particular focus on flowering species. Thus, not all plant species were always recorded. Observations were conducted at each hiking trail once or twice per month every year by at least two individual volunteers. Observations occasionally did not occur due to the lack of participants or to closure of the hiking trails. Typically, several volunteers were in charge of each hiking trail, and these members rarely changed.

B. Publication data content

In this data paper, I have published the family, species name, observed region, and observation year for each species. These data are described in the "ScientificName," "Family," "Locality," and "EarliestDateCollected" data sheets, respectively. In addition, I present local (Japanese) family and species names in the "Wamei" and "Wa_kamei" data sheets, respectively. The specific locations of the observed species are not disclosed to avoid unnecessary collections, which are often a problem in Hakone, especially for threatened plant species (Osawa and Inohara 2008). Thus, new records were accumulations of records in each region. More detailed records that include, for example, the specific hiking courses of observed species and years can be requested from the contact person.

C. Data verification

All raw data were recorded using only Japanese names. Family and scientific names were ascertained as described using the Y List (http://bean.bio.chiba-u.jp/bgplants/ylist_main.html; accessed 15 February 2013). If the Japanese standard name could not be found in the Y List, the data were removed from the analysis. Family names were according to the Engler family described in the Y list.

D. Taxonomy and systematics

All species were identified using references based on morphological forms by members of the Hakone Park Volunteer Association.

E. Data format

All data sets were formatted according to Darwin Core and Darwin Core Archives, which are defined by the Biodiversity Information Standards (BIS) or Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG); these are the data standards for publishing and integrating biodiversity information (Wieczorek et al. 2012). Darwin Core allows users to record the occurrence of various organisms worldwide, e.g., specimen records or observational records with environmental associations. Darwin Core is one de facto standard for describing species occurrence records (Osawa et al. 2011). The philosophy for the development of Darwin Core is to maintain a standard that is as simple and open as possible and to develop terms only in cases of a shared demand (Wieczorek et al. 2012). Darwin Core has a relatively long history of community development and is widely used in the field of biodiversity informatics (Canhos et al. 2004).

The published data are provided in two types, Darwin Core and Darwin Core Archives. Darwin Core data have only species occurrence records with both English and Japanese names, while Darwin Core Archives data have both species occurrence records and basic metadata using English only. Darwin Core occurrence records are provided as Unicode text files, and occurrence records within the Darwin Core Archives are provided as UTF-8 text files.

F. Data file components

G. Data table descriptions

The contents name and description of Darwin Core was according to version 1.4. All Descriptions were derived from TGWG web page (http://darwincore.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/terms/history/index.htm#GlobalUniqueIdentifier-2007-04-17; accessed 15, Feb, 2013).

6. Data status

Latest Update: 25 March 2013.

The data span the period 2001-2010. This census is continuing after 2010 but these data did not compile. Published dataset will be updated after compile.

7. Accessibility

License and Usage Rights

All published data can be used freely with reference to the data paper. In no event shall the authors or the data set owners be liable for any loss of profits or for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from the use of the data set. Data sets can be downloaded from the author’s personal Web site (http://osawa.nomaki.jp/; accessed 9 April 2013). Detailed information about the specific locations of observed species can be obtained from the contact person.

8. Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all past and present members of the Hakone Park Volunteer Association and the national park rangers at the Hakone natural-environment office, Ministry of the Environment, Japan. I also thank Dr. Yu-Huang Wang and the members of TaiBIF for supporting data managements.

9. References

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Carrier JA, Beebee TJC (2003) Recent, substantial, and unexplained declines of the common toad Bufo bufoin lowland England. Biol. Conserv. 111, 395-399.

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Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History (2001) Flora of Kanagawa 2001. Edited by the Flora-Kanagawa Association, Odawara.

Myers N, Mittermeier RA, Mittermeier CG, Fonseca GAB, and Kent J (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403:853-858.

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Tanaka N (2005) Extraction of Districts with Intensive Distribution of Reddata Plants Species in Kanagawa Prefecture. Bull. Kanagawa Prefect. Mus. (Nat.Sci.), No.34 (in Japanese with English summary)

Wieczorek J, Bloom D, Guralnick R, Blum S, Doring M, Giovanni R, Robertson T, Vieglais D. (2012) Darwin Core: An evolving community-developed biodiversity data standard. PLoS ONE: e29715. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029715.