Background The fern diversity of South East Sulawesi

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes, is one of the large islands of Indonesia it is one of the centers of biodiversity in Indonesia. Sulawesi is situated in the Wallace region between Borneo and the Moluccas Islands. The presence of Wallace line distincted Indonesia’s biodiversity to mainland Asia and Australia. Sulawesi Island is considered as the transition area that is influenced from both of mainland Asia and Australian continent, so that the composition of flora of Sulawesi is unique and specific Darlington 1966. Floristic study has played an important role in expressing the diversity of plant species in a region. In worldwide, the number of ferns species has been estimated to about 12,000 species. 65 of it are believed to be confined to the wet tropics Chin 2005. In Southeast Asia including Indonesia, there are 4,400 known species Winter Amoroso 2003, of estimated more than 1,300 species occur in Indonesia Sastrapradja et al. 1979. It means about 10 of the world known fern found in Indonesia. There are some publications of flowering plant in Sulawesi According to database of Herbarium Bogoriense, there has 1,147 sheets of 357 fern species have been collected from all over Sulawesi. Ferns specimens originated from South East Sulawesi are only 24 sheets belonging to 16 species stored in Herbarium Bogoriense. Steenis 1950 reported Kjellberg and Froideville have been visited to South East Sulawesi but according to the database of Herbarium Bogoriense most of the species were collected by Kjellberg in 1929. reported by Whitmore and Tantra 1989, Yuzammi and Hidayat 2002 and Keβler et al. 2002. However, fern diversity in Sulawesi particularly in South East Sulawesi is very limited. Several taxonomist have done exploration of ferns in Sulawesi such as Kawakani 1912, Ohba 1974, Praptosuwiryo and Wardani 2008 and Froideville Lam 1945, but they did not collected from South East Sulawesi. It is indicated that the data and information about ferns in South East Sulawesi is very limited. Therefore, this research on diversity of ferns in South East Sulawesi is important and will contribute data to the overall collection of ferns in Sulawesi.

1.2 Objectives