AUSTRALIAS VIRTUAL HERBARIUM

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AUSTRALIAS VIRTUAL HERBARIUM

• Peter Neish
• Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

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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

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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

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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
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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
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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

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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

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There are problems

• gt 20,000 species of higher plants
• gt 64,000 available names
• Extensive synonymy (4 names per plant)
• Many alternative taxonomic concepts
• 8 major government-funded herbaria
• Similar number of university herbaria
• gt 6,500,000 specimens in Aust. herbaria
• 50-100 data elements per specimen
• Several Kb per specimen (excl. images)

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Specimen data from major herbaria
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Herbarium database statusat start of AVH project
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The AVH Agreement

• 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

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Specimen data
Core information is from herbarium specimens

• Collections data
• Scientific name
• Collection date
• Collector name number
• Location
• Soils
• Habitat (incl. topography)
• Vegetation community
• Associated species
• Plant features, e.g. colour

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http//www.chah.gov.au/avh/
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Acacia
salicina
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Related Products

• On-line Flora information systems
• Generally regionally based
• Integrating
• Plant names
• Descriptive Flora treatments
• Illustrations
• Distributions

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Botanical Literature
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A Flora in XML
Example in HTML ltpgtltbgtPlatyzoma microphyllumlt/bgt
R.Br., ltigtProdr.lt/igt 160 (1810)lt/pgt ltp
gtltigtGleichenia platyzomalt/igt F.Muell., ltigtVeg.
Chatham.-Isl.lt/igt 63 (1864). T Facing Island,
Qld, ltigtR.Brown Iter Austral. 102lt/igt lecto
BM.lt/pgt ltpgtIllus. S.B.Andrewslt/pgt ltpgtRhizome
short-creeping Sporangia in zones in distal half
of frond. Fig. 55lt/pgt ltpgtWidespread across
northern Australia Grows in sandy or swampy
soils.... Map 135.lt/pgt ltpgtW.A. 14.4 km NW of
Mtlt/pgt
Example in XML lttaxongtltnamegtPlatyzoma
microphyllumlt/namegt ltauthorgtR.Brlt/authorgt,
ltpublicationgtlttitlegtProdr.lt/titlegt
ltpagegt160lt/pagegtltdategt1810lt/dategt
lt/publicationgt ltsynonymgt ltnamegtGleichenia
platyzomalt/namegt ltauthorgt F.Muell.
lt/authorgtltpublicationgtVeg. Chatham.-Isl.lt/publicat
iongt ltpagegt63ltpagegt ltdategt1864lt/dategt lttypegtT
Facing Island, Qld, lt/typegtlt/synonymgt ltillustrati
ongtIllus. S.B.Andrewslt/illustrationgt ltdescriptio
ngtRhizome short-creeping Sporangia in zones in
distal half of frond. lt/descriptiongt ltfiguregt
Fig. 55 lt/figuregt ltlocalitygtWidespread across
northern Australia lt/localitygtlthabitatgtGrows in
sandy or swampy soils...lt/habitatgt ltmapgtMap
135.lt/mapgt ltspecimensgtW.A. 14.4 km NW of
Mtlt/specimensgtlt/taxongt
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Flora Information Systems
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Botanical illustrations
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Portraits of Plant species

• National Plant Photograph Index
• Search on-line
• Some digital imagesavailable
• 35,000 images ofAustralian plantsand vegetation

www.anbg.gov.au/anbg/photo-collection/
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Type Images on demand
High resolution image oftype specimen of
Austrobaileyadownloaded over the Internetfrom
the Herbarium of theNew York Botanical Garden
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Interactive Plant Identification
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Invasive Plant Notification
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Trends in Biodiverssity Information Management

• Regional
• Text-based
• Taxon-based
• Individual effort
• Single user
• Standalone
• Centralized
• Proprietary System
• Idiosyncratic Design
• Nonstandard data content
• Conventional
• Developmental
• Access charges

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

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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