This dataset provides digitized occurrence records of vascular plants preserved in the Gombe State University Herbarium (GSUH), Gombe State, Nigeria. The records document the diversity and distribution of vascular plants collected primarily in northern Nigeria and include specimen-based taxonomic, geographic, and collection information where available. Publication through GBIF makes these locally held botanical records globally discoverable and contributes to addressing the underrepresentation of Nigerian herbarium collections in international biodiversity databases. The dataset supports research in plant taxonomy, systematics, phylogenomics, floristics, ecology, biogeography, species distribution modelling, and conservation. It also contributes to efforts to give greater visibility to historically underrepresented or “silent” herbaria in Africa and integrate their collections into global biodiversity infrastructures
","introduction":"Herbarium collections are fundamental sources of information on plant diversity, distribution, ecology, and conservation. However, many botanical collections in Africa, particularly those held by regional and national herbaria, remain poorly represented in global biodiversity databases. This limited digital visibility restricts their use in biodiversity research and conservation planning and contributes to what has been described as “data silence” in African biodiversity science (Zhigila et al., 2026).The GSUH houses a growing collection of vascular plant specimens, particularly from Gombe State and other parts of northeastern Nigeria. These specimens provide valuable historical and contemporary evidence of the region’s flora, including information on species occurrence, geographic distribution, habitats, and collection localities. Mobilizing these records through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) makes the collection more accessible to researchers, conservation practitioners, and other users of biodiversity data.The publication of GSUH occurrence records on GBIF therefore contributes to improving the representation of Nigerian plant diversity in global biodiversity infrastructures. It also supports taxonomic research, floristic studies, ecological analyses, species distribution modelling, and conservation assessment while increasing the visibility and scientific value of locally maintained herbarium collections (Sawa et al., 2025; Zhigila et al., 2026).
","gettingStarted":"This dataset comprises digitized occurrence records of vascular plant specimens preserved in the Gombe State University Herbarium (GSUH), Nigeria. The dataset is provided as a single tabular data file containing specimen-based occurrence records and associated taxonomic, geographic, collection, and institutional information. Each row represents an individual occurrence record corresponding to a herbarium specimen, while columns provide standardized fields describing the taxonomic identity, locality, geographic coordinates, collection date, collector information, specimen identifiers, and other available metadata.The records were transcribed and digitized from herbarium specimens maintained at GSUH and subsequently prepared according to biodiversity data standards for publication through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The dataset is intended to provide occurrence-level information on the vascular flora represented in the GSUH collection and can be used independently for analyses of species distributions, floristic composition, biogeography, ecology, and conservation. The data are structured in a tabular format compatible with standard spreadsheet and biodiversity informatics software and can be downloaded from GBIF for further analysis in R, Python, GIS software, or other biodiversity analysis platforms.
","acknowledgements":"We are grateful to the TETFund TETF/DR&D/CE/UNI/GOMBE/IBR/2025/VOL. I, for funding the mobilization of data, For Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and GBIF BID-AF2025-MIG-193 for facilitating the data publication.
","pubDate":"2026-10-05T00:00:00.000+00:00","maintenanceUpdateFrequency":"AS_NEEDED","maintenanceDescription":"Record update","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode","dwca":{"coreType":"http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/Occurrence","extensions":[],"modified":"2026-10-01T15:28:07.867+00:00"},"approximateCounts":{"occurrenceCount":1358}}