Critical improvement of the Rocky Mountain Herbarium: securing and enabling access to the world's largest collection of plants in the Rocky Mountain region

University Of Wyoming, Laramie WY

Investigators

Abstract

The Rocky Mountain Herbarium (RM) is among the largest public university herbaria in the United States. With over 1 million accessioned specimens, it contains the most comprehensive collection of Rocky Mountain plants in the world. The RM has outgrown its space and the bulk of these specimens are inaccessible to researchers. Rapid growth of the RM is the result of a large-scale inventory program focused on documenting the flora of the Rocky Mountains. This project will provide for greatly increased accessibility of RM specimens and associated data, that are used for research, teaching, and outreach. More than 200 herbarium cabinets will be added to secure over 420,000 specimens and allow for incorporation of the Central Wyoming College Herbarium. A key activity will be to image all mounted specimens that have not yet been imaged, resulting in a total 700,000 completely digitized specimens that will substantially increase accessibility of collections data from Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains that are widely used by the public and land management agencies. The project also includes a summer internship program, to train the next generation of herbarium scientists in both traditional and modern aspects of specimen curation and specimen-based research. The University of Wyoming Rocky Mountain Herbarium (RM) is in critical need of expansion to secure the large number of specimens that are currently inaccessible and at risk. In addition, the Central Wyoming College Herbarium (CWC), a regional collection of ca. 45,000 specimens shuttered since the retirement of its faculty curator, will be incorporated. Through the addition of the herbarium cabinets, the RM will secure specimens that are currently in cardboard boxes on the tops of existing cabinets and address a backlog of 250,000 specimens that are already mounted but inaccessible to researchers. Specimens will be imaged, including those in the CWC herbarium, to provide access to completely digitized specimen records or nearly 700,000 specimens from Wyoming and the Rocky Mountains. Data will be made available through the RM specimen portal, regional, national, and international data aggregators and consortia including iDigBio.org. In addition, this project will serve as a platform for a summer Rocky Mountain Herbarium Internship with the goal of providing a foundational knowledge of herbarium management, curation, and research through a directed, hands-on experience. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.