Species abundance, distribution and diversity in time and space after centuries of botanical collecting in the Guianas

For centuries, botanists have collected plant specimens across the Guianas (Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana). In this paper, we describe the construction of a comprehensive angiosperm specimen database for the Guianas and examine: (1) the historical accumulation of species and specimens; (2) the pattern of geographical expansion of collecting efforts; (3) the distribution of specimen records among families, genera, species, growth forms and countries. The cleaned database contained 168,487 specimen records belonging to 7146 species. The specimen records showed uneven distribution among families, genera, species, growth forms and countries. Although there was some species overlap between and among countries, unique species were collected in each country. Despite the high collecting efforts, many areas still remain under-collected.