Digitisation of primary biodiversity data in natural history collections

John Tannjohn.tann@austmus.gov.auKolkata, June 2011

The Atlas is funded by the Australian Government under the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategyand further supported by the Super Science Initiative of the Education Investment Fund

Australian collections

Collections (z = 63) Specimens held % databased

Agriculture Plant Genetic Resources 197,000 95%

DNA Collections 350,000 2%

Fauna Collections - Insect 17,808,710 9%

Fauna Collections – State/Major 35,653,401 15%

Herbaria – State/Major 6,742,460 65%

Herbaria – University & Specialist 501,310 49%

Microbial Collections 53,507 65%

TOTALS 61,306,388 20%

ABIF estimates February 2011

Herbarium sheets

Herbarium sheets

Carl Bento, Australian Museum

Jason Armstrong, Australian Museum

Australian Museum

Stuart Humphreys, Australian Museum

Museum specimens

Brooke Carson-Ewart, Australian Museum

Imaging

Imaging for diagnostics

Imaging for access Imaging for preservation

Geoff Thompson, Queensland Museum

RBG Sydney

Field data capture

• Initially targeted for Citizen Science and rebuilt for researchers

• Web and mobile versions

• Open Source

• You define a project, including fields to collect.

• Records captured can be viewed through website

• Export records to your CMS

• Administration through browser

Names service

Supplementary projects

Specify 6

Open source Collection Management System

Morphbank

Image repository for biological science

GEOLocate

Georeferencing software and services

The Atlas is funded by the Australian Government under the National Collaborative Research

Infrastructure Strategyand the Education Investment Fund

The Atlas of Living Australia Participants

Council of Heads of Australian Collections of Microorganisms