XVI International Botanical Congess
Nuclear DNA C-values are used in many botanical fields, so C-values must be easily available for reference and analysis in a user-friendly form. Five collected lists of DNA amounts published since 1976 were recently pooled into one combined list. A first limited version - the 'Angiosperm DNA C-value database' - with DNA C-values for 2,802 species from over 300 original sources was published electronically in April 1997 (http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/cval/database1.html). A relational version (release 2.0) went live in October 1998, logging 2000 successful enquiries in 2 months. Further improvements are planned, including adding data for gymnosperms. Existence of the database has already facilitated broad new analyses including studies of C-values in the world's worst weeds, phylogenetic trends in genome size, and, gaps in representation at the family level to identify key targets for new research.