AUSTRALIA

1
(No Transcript)
2
AUSTRALIAS VIRTUAL HERBARIUM

• Mobilizing and linking botanical information
  across the country
• Delivering scientific plant information to the
  user

3
Outline of presentation

• Background to the AVH
• What is the AVH ?
• Products of the AVH
• Plant names, specimens
• Plant identification tools
• Users of the AVH
• Community projects
• Botanical research
• Summary

4
What is an herbarium?

• A scientific collection of preserved plant
  specimens and botanical information

5
Collecting specimens
The work of herbaria
6
Herbarium Specimens
7
Specimen Data Capture
8
Public Reference Herbarium
9
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
  botanical information

10
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

11
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
12
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
13
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

14
And there is some urgency

• Australias biodiversity is at risk from
  inappropriate land management practices and
  historical ignorance of the implications.
• We know a lot about what not to do, but
  redressing the damage, and managing better for
  the future, requires sound information about our
  biodiversity.
• For sustainable natural resource management we
  need to know what was there and where it
  occurred.

15
What is the problem?

• gt 18,000 species of higher plants
• gt 64,000 available names
• Extensive synonymy (4 names per plant)
• 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)

16
Contribution of specimen data from each major
herbarium
17
Herbarium database status
Us
18
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 a complete flora information system

19
What do we want to know?

• What species does a plant belong to?
• What is its name?
• What other species is it related to?
• What does it look like?
• Where does it grow?
• Where might it grow?
• What other species grow with it?
• What species grow in a defined area?
• How did they get there?

20
Data refinement
action
knowledge
information
Increasing refinement utility of data
data
observations
the real world
21
Australias Virtual Herbarium

• On-line access to herbarium specimen information
  and botanical knowledge

22
Australian Plant Name Index (APNI)
23
www.anbg.gov.au/apni
24
www.anbg.gov.au/win
25
Specimen data

• The core information is from herbarium specimens
• Beyond taxonomy, systematics names

• Collections data

• Scientific name

26
A Herbarium Database Structure
27
(No Transcript)
28
(No Transcript)
29
http//www.chah.gov.au/avh.html
30
(No Transcript)
31
Acacia
salicina
32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
(No Transcript)
35
(No Transcript)
36
(No Transcript)
37
(No Transcript)
38
(No Transcript)
39
Flora Information Systems

• On-line systems
• Regionally based
• Integrating
• Plant names
• Descriptive Flora treatments
• Illustrations
• Distributions

40
Flora Information Systems
41
Botanical illustrations
42
Type Images on demand
High resolution image oftype specimen of
Austrobaileyadownloaded over the Internetfrom
the Herbarium of theNew York Botanical Garden
43
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/
44
Interactive Identification

• Using computers to identify and name plant
  species and display information about them

45
Interactive Plant Identification

• Computer based
• CDROM, disk drive
• Internet accessible
• Extension of conventional dichotomous keys
• Multiple entry points
• Menu driven
• Expert systems
• On-line help, background information
• On-line images
• Links to on-line fact sheets, Internet resources

46
Interactive Plant Identification
47
Interactive Plant Identification
48
(No Transcript)
49
(No Transcript)
50
(No Transcript)
51
(No Transcript)
52
(No Transcript)
53
(No Transcript)
54
(No Transcript)
55
(No Transcript)
56
(No Transcript)
57
Uses potential applications

• Education, research, community

58
Why it will work

• Communication - CHAH, few herbaria
• Collaboration - long-standing, data sharing,
  overcoming Australias Federal/State system
• Champions - management, public
• Lobbying and profile of herbaria
• Relevance of product
• And nowwe need to maintain commitment to project
  (e.g. impact on research outputs and other
  organisational initiatives)

59
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

60
Research projects benefiting

• Regular systematic taxonomic research
• Rare plants / conservation
• Species distribution patterns
• Weed biogeography comparative native species
• Remnant vegetation / revegetation
• Phylogeography of Australian plants
• Basically, anything requiring spatial
  visualization and defensible dots or blobs on maps

61
Plant distribution analysis
Pultenaea species in eastern Australia
?
?
Incurved
Recurved
62
Uses
63
Greening the Grainbelt

• A community landcare revegetation program

64
Harden Murrumburrah Landcare Group
HMLG
65
Greening the Grainbelt

• The Harden Murrumburrah Landcare Group
  Revegetation project supported by the NHT
• A pressing need to revegetate the area
• Currently less than 3 native vegetation
  remaining in Harden shire
• Concerns relating to appropriate species to plant
• Approached Australian National Herbarium to
  produce a planting list based on suspected
  natural flora

66
Revegetation - Methodology

• Defensible species lists
• Extracts from herbarium specimen database
• Species known from the study area and associated
  species
• Species known from surrounding areas and
  associated species
• Historical records
• Local landholder knowledge
• Expert biological interpretation

67
Assisting landholders with biodiversity
information
68
Large map
69
www.anbg.gov.au/greening-grainbelt/
www.anbg.gov.au/greening-grainbelt/
70
Unexpected results ?

• Callistemon sieberi (River bottlebrush)

71
Greening the Grainbelt Outputs Outcomes

• An improved suggested planting list 400
  species Greening the Grainbelt website
• www.anbg.gov.au/greening-grainbelt/
• Encourages a greater diversity of plantings
• A practical transferable model methodology for
  other Landcare revegetation projects

72
Greening the Grainbelt Outputs Outcomes

• Significant interest in the process from
  Government and other Landcare groups
• Enhanced communityawareness of biodiversity
  conservation issues
• Demonstrates the utility of herbarium specimen
  data in environmental planning

73
Collaboration Dissemination
74
Summary

• Australias Virtual Herbarium
• Is a collaborative national project
• Making botanical information available
• Using modern technology
• Australian innovation, emulated internationally

75
(No Transcript)