Abstract Detail

Systematics

Zimmerman, Charles J. [1], Tulig, Melissa [1].

NYBG Contributions to World Flora Online: Digitization of the Flora Neotropica Monographs and Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden.

Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation calls for the creation of “an online flora of all known plants” to better understand and document the world's embattled plant diversity. The World Flora Online (WFO) consortium was established to promote collaboration between institutions, identify content, and develop infrastructure critical to fulfilling this task. As a founding member of the consortium and a proprietor of significant botanical research and expertise, The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is helping to meet Target 1 by publishing a complete set of fully-digital taxonomic treatments from the extensive Flora Neotropica monographs series and selected volumes from the Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden series authored by Rupert Barneby, both published by the NYBG Press. To create a functional database from these resources, scans of each volume were sent through optical character recognition software, the output was proofread, and treatments were parsed and annotated to comply with Darwin Core standards. Newly digital treatments harvested from Flora Neotropica and the Barneby Memoirs are rich with detail and include: taxonomic names & descriptions, geographic distributions, synonymy, ecology, conservation assessments, and often additional content. Written treatments are also being combined with links to imaged specimens from the NY Herbarium and over 50,000 in-situ field-photographs recently assembled from our curators' vast personal image libraries and made available through a newly-designed NYBG website to host all data prepared for the World Flora Online. By July 2016, NYBG will launch an integrated portal combining all these resources, including 10,000+ vascular plant & bryophyte taxa from Flora Neotropica, and 3,000+ Legume taxa from the Barneby monographs. The content will be continually increased as we process additional volumes of Memoirs of The New York Botanical Garden.

1 - New York Botanical Garden, Herbarium, 2900 Southern Blvd., NYBG, Bronx, New York, 10458, United States

Keywords:
World Flora Online
Flora Neotropica
Digital Monographs
New York Botanical Garden
taxonomy
Field Photographs
Taxonomic descriptions
conservation.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 47, Systematic Methods, Herbarium Digitization & Floristics
Location: 203/Savannah International Trade and Convention Center
Date: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2016
Time: 3:45 PM
Number: 47009
Abstract ID:290
Candidate for Awards:None