H I S C O M

Flora information Partnership

Barry Conn

Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney

Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria

Herbaria:

– centres of expertise in plant, algal & fungal biodiversity

• Australian collections - about 6.5 million

• Principal repositories of vouchered data

• Long-standing global and Australia-wide cooperative approach,

– specimen exchange and loan

– research across regional interests of herbaria

– publication

H I S C O M

Herbarium Information Systems Committee

Advisory committee to:Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria

(CHAH)

Aim of HISCOM:

• to advise, share, develop and promote all aspects of digitisation of herbarium information

• Representatives:– all Government Herbaria

– University Herbaria representative

– New Zealand Herbaria representative

– ad hoc invitees: key partners (ABRS, ERIN) and collaborators

Digitisation of herbarium datain Australia

• Since mid 1970s herbarium information data-processed

• Digitisation was driven by need for Census and Spatial data

Development of standards important

• In the 1980s HISPID - An herbarium specimen-label data interchange standard was developed

•HISPID used with specimens exchanged and loaned between Australian herbaria

Australian electronic plant, algal and fungal data: 1Censuses• Vascular plants – full Australian coverage

Nomenclator: Australian Plant Name Index• Cryptogams – incomplete• Fungi – incomplete, macrofungi current project for national census• Algae – national census of marine algae; freshwater algae

Specimen data• 40% of 6.5 million specimens in Australian Govt herbaria

Textual Descriptions:

vascular plants - 65-70% coverage • Flora of Australia, plus monographs: 60%• State floras (SA, NSW, Tas, Vic, ACT – 95-99% coverage• Regional: Qld 62%, NT 70%, WA 40%)

non-vascular plants, algae, fungi - Overall very incomplete coverage

• National handbooks (Flora of Australia)

• Regional or state handbooks (Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia; Lichens of SA; Mosses of SA)

Australian electronic plant, algal and fungal data: 2

Image data

• Image banks: few herbaria (CANB, PERTH)

• Other image banks: specialists, a number in Botanic Gardens, Societies, other Govt agencies e.g. weeds

Identification tools

• Many - mostly using LucID and DELTA, other applications Tropical Rainforest (Whiffin & Christophel); Cycad Pages (Hill)

• Notable on CD: Angiosperm families (World, Australian); Australian Rainforest Trees, Eucalyptus; Acacia.

• On Web: WA Flora Catalogue, Cycad Pages, WattleWeb, NSW Flora On-line

Australian eFloras and other digital products

Australian eFloras and other digital products

Australian eFloras and other digital products

Aim of Prototype:– demonstrate functional capabilities of a distributed network on Internet

– demonstrate the collective capability of IT expertise in Australian herbaria

– highlight the custodianship and legitimate claim by Australian herbaria to be stakeholders in Australian plant biodiversity projects

– highlight the need to resource data capture and delivery

– emphasise the essential underlying partnership

Development of Australia’s Virtual Herbarium

(VAH)

The Australian Government herbariaPartners in the initial prototype

1999: Initial prototype - Acacia data from all mainland herbaria via a single query

H I S C O M

Common mulga Acacia aneura

The Australian Government herbariaPartners in the initial prototype

Australia’s Virtual Herbarium Stage 1 Web development

Benefits of AVH over traditional herbarium

practices

• Sharing technological advances– Continue sharing IT developments

• Move to sharing data: avoid duplication of effort– Duplicate specimens

– Image banks

– Descriptions

– ID tools: simple and complex

• Develop an on-line information system: effectively electronic Flora of Australia

Maximises limited resources

Benefits of AVH over traditional herbarium

practices• Regional herbaria: distributed system or linkage to major

State

• State censuses: a thing of the past?

• Increased accessibility to collections by Community

• Publication - an On-line shared resource

Australia’s Virtual Herbarium New opportunities

Involving Community and other User groups • Increased collecting - gaps in plant distribution data obvious• Increased use of current plant systematic information

New (and continued) partnerships • Access to other data and information through partnerships of

mutual benefit to custodians

Capacity to link to International networks