Personal Digital Field Guides: Mobile Access to Comprehensive Regional Flora

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Abstract

Floras are the mechanisms for synthesizing and disseminating knowledge about plant biodiversity. The Northwest Alliance for Computational Science and Engineering and the Oregon Flora Project will collaborate to develop a software architecture and tools for creating comprehensive electronic floras that cover a broad spectrum of data about plants. The resulting personal digital field guide (PDFG) will be comprehensive and extensible. Data will be available on the web. The architecture and toolkits will be generalizable to other domains in the natural sciences. The data set for the project represents the largest and most comprehensive resource on regional flora to date. The project will integrate the diverse sources, enabling new ways of exploring the relationships of plants to their environments. A broad range of users, including nature lovers, scientists, students, and decision makers, will be able to personalize the way they navigate through the flora, selecting the amount and type of information presented as well as how and when it will be accessed.