Transcript Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Innovations for accessing biological information On-line access to herbarium specimen information and botanical knowledge Lindy Cayzer, Greg Whitbread & Brigitte Kuchlmayr Australian.

Australia’s Virtual Herbarium
Innovations for accessing biological information
On-line access to herbarium specimen information
and botanical knowledge
Lindy Cayzer, Greg Whitbread & Brigitte Kuchlmayr
Australian National Herbarium
Outline of Presentation
• Background to Australia’s Virtual Herbarium
– What is the AVH ?
• Aspects of the AVH
– Plant names, specimens
– Plant images, plant identification tools
• Uses and users of the AVH
– Botanical research
– Community projects
• Summary
What is a Virtual Herbarium?
• A collaborative project of the Australian
Herbarium community
• The AVH provides immediate on-line access
to the wealth of data associated with six
million scientific plant specimens maintained
and managed in Australian herbaria
Where is the AVH?
• Spread across Australian herbaria
• Each herbarium has a portal to
receive requests and to deliver
data
• A common query AVH interface
in each herbarium polls all
herbaria and provides a single,
integrated response
MAJOR AUSTRALIAN HERBARIA
Why is there an AVH?
• Pressure on Herbaria to work more efficiently
• Demand for access to larger amounts of data
• Demand to access data more quickly
• Demand to view data in different ways
• Pressure on herbaria to appear and to be
more responsive to community needs
What is the problem?
• At least 20,000 species of
higher plants in Australia,
many endemic
• About 68,000 referenced
names in the Australian
Plant Name Index (APNI)
as a result of
– Complex and extensive
synonymy for most commonly
occurring plants
– Alternative taxonomic concepts
resulting in different names in
different states (e.g. Caladenia,
Orchidaceae)
• 8 major governmentfunded herbaria
– Similar number of university
herbaria
• > 6,500,000 specimens
in Aust. Herbaria
– 50-100 data elements per
specimen
– Several Kb per specimen
(excl. images)
Specimen data from major herbaria
Herbarium database status
Australia’s Virtual Herbarium
On-line access to herbarium specimen information
and botanical knowledge
What do we want to know?
• What is this plant?
Is this the current name?
What other species is it related to?
What does it look like?
• How does it grow?
Where does it grow?
Where might it grow?
What other species grow with it?
What species grow in a defined area?
How did they get there?
Australia’s Virtual Herbarium
Some views of the data
Portraits of Plant species
• National Plant Photograph Index
– Search on-line
– Some digital images
available
– 35,000 images of
Australian plants
and vegetation
Botanical illustrations
Type Images on demand
• High resolution image of
type specimen of Austrobaileya
downloaded over the Internet
from the Herbarium of the
New York Botanical Garden
Specimen data
Core information is from herbarium specimens
Collections data:
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Scientific name
Collection date
Collector name & number
Location
Soils
Habitat (incl. topography)
Vegetation community
Associated species
Plant features, e.g. colour
Related Products
• On-line Flora information systems
• Generally regionally based
• Integrating:
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Plant names
Descriptive Flora treatments
Illustrations
Distributions
Flora Information Systems
Interactive Key Identification
Potential users of the AVH
• Participating herbaria have access to all the
data at the highest precision
• Research and industry
• Education and general public interest
• Conservation agencies
• Land managers
• Environmental decision makers
What do we want to know?
• What is this plant?
Is this the current name?
What other species is it related to?
What does it look like?
• How does it grow?
Where does it grow?
Where might it grow?
What other species grow with it?
What species grow in a defined area?
How did they get there?
Invasive Plant Notification
Plant distribution analysis
Pultenaea species in eastern Australia
There is some urgency…
1907
2002
Summary
Australia’s Virtual Herbarium:
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A collaborative national project
Making botanical information easily available
Using modern technology
Using cheap, readily available components
A model for regional and global cooperation
Acknowledgements
State Herbarium of
South Australia
National Herbarium of
Victoria
Queensland Herbarium
National Herbarium of
New South Wales
Australian National
Herbarium
Northern Territory
Herbarium
Tasmanian Herbarium
Industry Partner:
KE Software
Western Australian
Herbarium
Australian Biological
Resources Study