Dr David Harris, Herbarium Curator and Deputy Director of Science
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Dr David Harris, Herbarium Curator and Deputy Director of Science
My role is to run the herbarium of 3 million specimens held in Edinburgh. I am also Deputy Director of Science. My research is focused on the plants from the forests of central Africa. I teach on the MSc in Plant Biodiversity and Taxonomy and supervise post-graduate students.
I have been herbarium curator at RBGE since 2002. Since then the herbarium at RBGE has led the way in using the unified family classification of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group to organise our collection. We have prioritised high quality images of specimens and minimal data records to maximise the access of the specimens that we hold. At RBGE we brought in the permanent identifiers for specimens that has been taken up by the global herbarium community. We have a digitisation-on-demand service that acts to prioritise which specimens are digitised first. All these achievements were due to collaboration within RBGE and with external partners.
My research aims to:
- Provide names, descriptions, images and other means of identification for flowering plants in tropical Africa.
- Understand the threats to forests of the Congo Basin and work with partners to mitigate the threats.
- Investigate the role that herbarium specimens play in scientific understanding of the diversity and distribution of plants.
Orcid orcid.org/0000-0002-6801-2484
Contact: dharris@rbge.org.uk
Addresss: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh EH3 5LR, Scotland, UK
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- Publications
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Selected publications
Harris, D.J., Ndolo Ebika S.T., Sanz C.M., Madingou, M.P.N., Morgan, D.B. (2021). Large trees in tropical rain forests require big plots. Plants, People, Planet. 1–13.
Harris, D.J., Barberá P., Nguema, D. Quintanar, A. (2021). Putranjivceae in Flore du Gabon 57 : 107- 160.
Goodwin, Z. A., Muñoz-Rodríguez, P., Harris, D. J., Wells, T., Wood, J. R., Filer, D., & Scotland, R. W. (2020). How long does it take to discover a species?. Systematics and Biodiversity, 1-10. doi: 10.1080/14772000.2020.1751339
Tovar, C. Harris, D.J., Breman, E. &T. Brncic, Willis, K.J. (2019) Tropical monodominant forest resilience to climate change in Central Africa: A Gilbertiodendron dewevrei forest pollen record over the past 2,700 years. Journal of Vegetation Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.12746
Harris, D.J. & Wortley, A.W. (2018) Monograph of Aframomum (Zingiberaceae). Systematic Botany Monographs 104. 1-204.
Slik, J. F. et al. (2018). Phylogenetic classification of the world’s tropical forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(8), 1837-1842.
Droissart, V. et al. (2018). Beyond trees: Biogeographical regionalization of tropical Africa. Journal of Biogeography.1–15.
Cardoso, D., Harris, D. J., Wieringa, J. J., São-Mateus, W. M., Batalha-Filho, H., Torke, B. M., . & de Queiroz, L. P. (2017). A molecular-dated phylogeny and biogeography of the monotypic legume genus Haplormosia, a missing African branch of the otherwise American-Australian Brongniartieae clade. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 107, 431-442.
Sosef, M. S., et al. (2017). Exploring the floristic diversity of tropical Africa. BMC biology, 15(1), 15.
Blatrix, R., Peccoud, J., Born, C., Piatscheck, F., Benoit, L., Sauve, M., Djiéto‐Lordon, C., Atteke, C., Wieringa, J.J., Harris, D.J. and McKey, D. (2017) Comparative analysis of spatial genetic structure in an ant–plant symbiosis reveals a tension zone and highlights speciation processes in tropical Africa. Journal of Biogeography 44: 1856-1868.
The Legume Phylogeny Working Group (LPWG) (2017). A new subfamily classification of the Leguminosae based on a taxonomically comprehensive phylogeny. Taxon, 66: 44-77.
Sullivan, M. J., et al. (2017). Diversity and carbon storage across the tropical forest biome. Scientific Reports, 7: 1-31.
Baden H.M., Särkinena T., Condea D.A., Matthews, A.C. Vandrot H., Chicasa S,C., Pennila C., Bayly W.D.R., Chance R. Bridgewater S.G.M.& D.J. Harris. (2016) A botanical Inventory of forest on karstic limestone and metamorphic substrate in the Chiquibul forest, with focus on woody taxa. Edinburgh Journal of Botany 73:39-81.
Dauby G., et al. (2016) RAINBIO: a mega-database of tropical African vascular plants distributions. Phytokeys
Mitchell, T. C., Williams, B. R., Wood, J. R., Harris, D. J., Scotland, R. W., & Carine, M. A. (2016). How the temperate world was colonised by bindweeds: biogeography of the Convolvuleae (Convolvulaceae). BMC evolutionary biology, 16(1), 1.
Mackinder, B., Harris, D.J. and Gautier, L. (2016) A reinstatement, recircumscription and revision of the genus Donella (Sapotaceae). Edinburgh Journal of Botany, 73(3): 297–339.
Harris D.J., Bridgewater S.G.M. & Moutsamboté J.-M. (2015) Training in Tropical Plant Identification. In Watson M.F., Lyal H.C. & Pendry C.A. (eds). Descriptive Taxonomy: The Foundation of Biodiversity Research, pp. 160-170. Cambridge University Press.
Wortley A.H. & Harris D.J. (2015) Sangha Trees: an identification and training guide to the trees of the northern Republic of Congo. In Watson M.F., Lyal H.C. & Pendry C.A. (eds). Descriptive Taxonomy: The Foundation of Biodiversity Research, pp. 127-145. Cambridge University Press.
Thomas D.C., Chatrou L.W., Stull G.W., Johnson D.M., Harris D.J., Thongpairoj U-sa, Richard M.K. & Saunders R.M.K. (2015) The historical origins of palaeotropical intercontinental disjunctions in the pantropical flowering plant family Annonaceae. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 17: 1–16.
Wood J.R.I., M. A. Carine M.A., Harris D.J., Wilkin P., Williams, B. & Scotland R.W. (2015) Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae) in Bolivia. Kew Bulletin 70: 1-124.
Wood J.R.I, Williams B.R.M., Mitchell T.C., Carine M., Harris D.J. & Scotland R.W. (2015) A foundation monograph of Convolvulus L. (Convolvulaceae). PhytoKeys 51: 1-282.
Slik F., et al. (2015).An estimate of the number of tropical tree species. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 112 (24): 7472-7477.
Goodwin, Z. A., Harris, D. J., Filer, D., Wood, J. R. I. & R. W. Scotland. (2015) Widespread mistaken identity in tropical plant collections. Current Biology 25: 1066-1067.
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