Additions to the “Martian Flora”: new botanical records from the Mars Desert Research Station, Utah
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Published:2020-08-18
Issue:
Volume:8
Page:
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ISSN:1314-2828
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Container-title:Biodiversity Data Journal
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language:
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Short-container-title:BDJ
Author:
Sokoloff PaulORCID,
Murray David,
McBeth Samantha,
Irvine Michael,
Rupert Shannon
Abstract
The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a Mars-simulation campus set in a Martian planetary analogue in southern Utah. Despite a long history of astrobiology research, collections-based taxonomic inventories of the macro-level biodiversity around the station are relatively new. This study serves to add to the initial vascular plant list published for the station in 2016, where 39 species were recorded for MDRS. Here we report 40 new species, two new taxa recorded only to genus and two species re-identified from our 2016 fieldwork, bringing the total number of taxa in the "Martian" flora to 79 species and two taxa recorded to genus.
Publisher
Pensoft Publishers
Subject
Ecology,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics