ELPT was established around 2007 from three independent individual initiatives.
Maintained a long-standing nomenclatural, taxonomic and distribution resource, providing the backbone of ELPT’s origins.
Developed a complementary database, creating a second pillar of ELPT and helping to unify nomenclatural data for global synthesis.
Facilitated collaboration, workshops, and international coordination, ensuring an involment of colleagues globally for various projects.
A GBIF Seed Money Award (2007–41) provided early support for collaboration and development of shared resources.
Early collaboration between the Field Museum and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, with activities also supported by the Encyclopedia of Life Biodiversity Synthesis Center.
The project is formally launched as Early Land Plants Today in Phytotaxa, establishing an international collaborative framework.
World Checklist of Hornworts and Liverworts (Söderström et al., PhytoKeys 59:1–828) synthesizes 7,486 accepted species, 398 genera, and 92 families, providing the first global baseline.
Development of regional checklists and incorporation of occurrence data expanded the scope and applications of ELPT.
ELPT matured into a unified digital platform with an emphasis on transparency, provenance, and regular updates across taxonomy, nomenclature, and distribution.
Broader coverage, new regional data, molecular updates to species concepts, and expanded applications in biogeography and climate science.
The project has, in collaboration with many international colleagues, produced over 100 publications, including global, regional, and taxonomic checklists, nomenclatural papers, and syntheses. These outputs underpin comparative, evolutionary, and conservation research worldwide.
Supported in part by the GBIF Seed Money Award (2007–41) and by the Encyclopedia of Life Biodiversity Synthesis Center.
The Field Museum and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology provided institutional backing for the collaboration.
Grants from the National Science Foundation (DBI 0749762; EF-0531730) partially supported database activities and development.
