Background:

Sinaloa is one of the states with the lowest number of botanical collections in Mexico, but with the highest number of observations on the iNaturalist/iNaturalistMX platform. In 2021, the floristic list of Sinaloa was published, but since then new explorations and discoveries have been made.

Questions:

How many and which vascular plant species should be added to the list of Sinaloa? What sources of information support them?

Species studied:

Vascular plants.

Study site and years:

Sinaloa, Mexico (2021-2024).

Methods:

Literature, herbaria, digital repositories, and iNaturalistMX were reviewed and botanical explorations were carried out. Richness analyses were performed with species added by recent explorations and compared with collection databases and iNaturalistMX.

Results:

130 species were added to the flora of Sinaloa, including three families (Podocarpaceae, Simaroubaceae and Symplocaceae) and 18 genera. Podocarpaceae and Simaroubaceae were also recorded for the first time for the Sierra Madre Occidental. The main sources of information were iNaturalistMX, recent collections and literature omissions. Ninety-two of the 130 additions have at least one record in iNaturalistMX, of which 31 are unique records. The areas with the most species added coincide with regions underrepresented in collections, historically considered low in richness due to collection biases.

Conclusions:

The flora of Sinaloa is far from completely known and collection biases have produced misinterpretations in the patterns of its richness. The use of iNaturalistMX and recent explorations allowed us to identify new areas rich in biodiversity.

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