Contribution of the Forest Map of Spain to the chorology of woody plant species

Abstract

Usually, common species sites are not thoroughly recorded in floristic studies. This kind of studies frequently focuses on rare species chorology. Woody plant surveys for the whole Spanish territory can be found in Ruiz de la Torre’s Forest Map of Spain. Five chorological maps based on herbarium and floristic publications data have been compared to those obtained from the Forest Map, using a 10 km UTM grid. After joining the maps, 50 to 95% of UTM squares are exclusive Forest Map contributions. Before adding Forest Map data, known distribution areas were at most 50% of the real area. Therefore, the contribution of the Forest Map to the chorology of woody plant species in Spain can be considered of great magnitude.