Capacity Expansion and Imaging/ Data Capture at the Herbarium of the University of Alaska Museum (ALA)

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

A grant has been awarded to the University of Alaska Museum (ALA) under the direction of Dr. Stefanie Ickert-Bond to incorporate 32,000 specimens of arctic and boreal plants from the J.P. Anderson Collection, recently acquired from Iowa State University. ALA has the largest collection of plant specimens from the Beringia Province. During the Pleistocene Ice Age, this region was free of ice, providing a refuge for terrestrial organisms on the Bering Land "Bridge" and a means by which plants could disperse between Asia and North America. This project will produce an online database with 190,000 digital images of herbarium specimens. Innovative digital tools will be used to automate the capture of data from labels on the herbarium sheets, and to implement an object-tracking system through the use of barcode labels. The data will be added to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, MorphBank, and GenBank. The University of Alaska Museum will organize a workshop for K-12 teachers and students to highlight the utility of living plants in the region as educational tools and to encourage an interest in plants through hands-on activities.