AUSTRALIA’S VIRTUAL HERBARIUM

Peter Neish

Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

What is a Virtual Herbarium?

• The physical resources and biological information of a herbarium represented digitally

• On-line access to herbaria and to botanical information managed by herbaria

• Integrated access to botanical information from various sources in a herbarium and other on-line biological information

What is the AVH?

• A collaborative project of the Australian Herbarium community–Digital–Collaborative–On-line–Integrated

• Partnership and shared access• Real-time access• Shared access to common authority files• Shared data-hosting, archiving and backup• Co-ownership

Where is the AVH?

• Spread across Australian herbaria

• Data distributed; resides with custodians

• Each herbarium has a portal to receive requests and to deliver data

• A common single query AVH interface in each herbarium polls all herbaria

Major Australian Herbaria

AVH Partners

State Herbarium of South Australia

Queensland Herbarium

Australian National Herbarium

Northern Territory Herbarium

Tasmanian Herbarium

Industry Partner:KE Software

National Herbarium of Victoria

National Herbarium of New South Wales

Western Australian Herbarium

Australian Biological Resources Study

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

Potential users of the AVH

• The participating herbaria have access to all the data at the highest precision

• Public access filter restricts access to work in progress, sensitive locality data, etc.

• Research and education

• Public general interest

• Access to conservation agencies, land managers, environmental decision makers

• > 20,000 species of higher plants• > 64,000 available names• Extensive synonymy (4 names per plant)• Many alternative taxonomic concepts

• 8 major government-funded 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)

There are problems

Specimen data from major herbaria

Herbarium database statusat start of AVH project

• $10M over 5 years to database all major Australian herbarium collections

• $10 million: - $ 4 million Commonwealth

- $ 4 million State/Territory- $ 2 million private

• Initial focus on capture of herbarium specimen data

• Ultimate aim is a complete flora information system

The AVH Agreement

Specimen data

Collections data:

– Scientific name

– Collection date

– Collector name & number

– Location

– Soils

– Habitat (incl. topography)

– Vegetation community

– Associated species

– Plant features, e.g. colour

Core information is from herbarium specimens

http://www.chah.gov.au/avh/

Acaciasalicina

• On-line Flora information systems

• Generally regionally based

• Integrating:

– Plant names– Descriptive Flora treatments– Illustrations– Distributions

Related Products

Botanical Literature

A Flora in XMLExample in HTML<p><b>Platyzoma microphyllum</b> R.Br., <i>Prodr.</i> 160 (1810)</p><p ><i>Gleichenia platyzoma</i> F.Muell., <i>Veg. Chatham.-Isl.</i> 63 (1864). T: Facing Island, Qld, <i>R.Brown Iter Austral. 102</i> ; lecto: BM.</p><p>Illus.: S.B.Andrews…</p><p>Rhizome short-creeping… Sporangia in zones in distal half of frond. Fig. 55</p><p>Widespread across northern Australia… Grows in sandy or swampy soils.... Map 135.</p><p>W.A.: 14.4 km NW of Mt…</p>

Example in XML<taxon><name>Platyzoma microphyllum</name> <author>R.Br</author>, <publication><title>Prodr.</title> <page>160</page><date>1810</date> </publication><synonym> <name>Gleichenia platyzoma</name> <author> F.Muell. </author><publication>Veg. Chatham.-Isl.</publication> <page>63<page> <date>1864</date> <type>T: Facing Island, Qld, …</type></synonym><illustration>Illus.: S.B.Andrews…</illustration><description>Rhizome short-creeping… Sporangia in zones in distal half of frond. </description> <figure> Fig. 55 </figure><locality>Widespread across northern Australia… </locality><habitat>Grows in sandy or swampy soils...</habitat> <map>Map 135.</map><specimens>W.A.: 14.4 km NW of Mt…</specimens></taxon>

Flora Information Systems

Botanical illustrations

National Plant Photograph Index

Search on-line

Some digital imagesavailable

35,000 images ofAustralian plantsand vegetation

Portraits of Plant species

www.anbg.gov.au/anbg/photo-collection/

High resolution image oftype specimen of Austrobaileyadownloaded over the Internetfrom the Herbarium of theNew York Botanical Garden

Type Images on demand

Interactive Plant Identification

Invasive Plant Notification

Trends in Biodiverssity Information Management

RegionalText-basedTaxon-basedIndividual effortSingle userStandaloneCentralizedProprietary SystemIdiosyncratic DesignNonstandard data contentConventionalDevelopmentalAccess charges

Global Image-based Spatially-based Partnerships Multiuser Networked Distributed Open System Standard Architecture Standard data content Innovative Stable Freely available

Acknowledgements

State Herbarium of South Australia

Queensland Herbarium

Australian National Herbarium

Northern Territory Herbarium

Tasmanian Herbarium

Industry Partner:KE Software

National Herbarium of Victoria

National Herbarium of New South Wales

Western Australian Herbarium

Australian Biological Resources Study

Jim Croft for slides