AUSTRALIAS VIRTUAL HERBARIUM Peter Neish Royal Botanic Gardens

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 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

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

There are problems • > 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)

Specimen data from major herbaria

Herbarium database status at start of AVH project

The AVH Agreement • $10 M 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

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

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

Acacia salicina

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

Botanical Literature

A Flora in XML Example in HTML Example in XML Platyzoma microphyllum R. Br. , Prodr. 160 (1810) Gleichenia platyzoma F. Muell. , Veg. Chatham. Isl. 63 (1864). T: Facing Island, Qld, R. Brown Iter Austral. 102 ; lecto: BM. Illus. : S. B. Andrews… Rhizome short-creeping… Sporangia in zones in distal half of frond. Fig. 55 Widespread across northern Australia… Grows in sandy or swampy soils. . Map 135. W. A. : 14. 4 km NW of Mt… <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

Portraits of Plant species National Plant Photograph Index Search on-line Some digital images available 35, 000 images of Australian plants and vegetation www. anbg. gov. au/anbg/photo-collection/

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

Interactive Plant Identification

Invasive Plant Notification

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

Acknowledgements State Herbarium of South Australia National Herbarium of Victoria Queensland Herbarium National Herbarium of New South Wales Australian National Herbarium Northern Territory Herbarium Western Australian Herbarium Australian Biological Resources Study Tasmanian Herbarium Jim Croft for slides Industry Partner: KE Software