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Abstract Detail


Systematics Section/ASPT

Dinicola, Alexandra [1], Mansfield, Don [2], Smith, James [3].

SWITCH (SouthWest Idaho: The Comprehensive Herbarium).

The College of Idaho's Harold M. Tucker Herbarium (CIC) and Boise State University's Snake River Plains Herbarium (SRP) are two relatively small herbaria in relatively remote locations, and as such are frequently overlooked by botanists and others studying the flora of the western USA. Despite their size, though, CIC and SRP between them represent arguably the most comprehensive collections for our region; any study of southwestern Idaho and adjacent Oregon and Nevada is poorer for having passed us by. To address the remoteness and lack of publicity that lead to such oversights, CIC and SRP have jointly acquired an NSF grant (proposal #1052719) and begun digitizing our collections. Over the next three years, approximately 112,000 specimens will be imaged and databased, comprising the collections of CIC, SRP, and five nearby Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service offices. The virtual herbarium thus produced will unify all our specimen data into a single, highly searchable database, to be made freely accessible online through the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria's web portal (www.pnwherbaria.org). We anticipate that the increased ease of access will stimulate floristic, taxonomic, and ecological research in the southwest Idaho region, as well as pave the way for more herbarium use by citizen scientists and the public.

Broader Impacts:


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Related Links:
The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria


1 - The College of Idaho, Harold M. Tucker Herbarium, 2112 Cleveland Blvd., Caldwell, ID, 83605, USA
2 - The College of Idaho, Harold M. Tucker Herbarium, 2112 Cleveland Blvd., Caldwell, ID, 83605, United States
3 - BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY, Biology Department, 1910 UNIVERSITY DRIVE, Boise, ID, 83725-1515, USA

Keywords:
herbaria
collections
biological research collections
underserved collections
Idaho
Intermountain region
digitization
specimen imaging
databases.

Presentation Type: Poster:Posters for Sections
Session: P
Location: Battelle South/Convention Center
Date: Monday, July 9th, 2012
Time: 5:30 PM
Number: PSY040
Abstract ID:208


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