12/11/07

Latin American botanists to get plant database

By: Eva Aguilar

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Latin American botanists to get plant database</h1>
<h4>By: Eva Aguilar</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>An initiative to put thousands of botanical specimens from Latin America into a single online database is underway.</p>
<p>The Latin American Plant Initiative (LAPI) will scan botanical ‘type’ specimens — the original specimen on which the description of a new species is based — with a view to improving plant science research and teaching.</p>
<p>LAPI’s first meeting took place at the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) last month (23–25 October).</p>
<p>There were 140 specialists from 70 herbaria housing collections of Latin American plants, who negotiated terms for making digital images and information available. </p>
<p>Type specimens, collected over centuries from Latin America, are spread over several herbaria in Europe, Latin America and the United States. LAPI aims to gather them together in a single digital network.</p>
<p>Mireya Correa, herbarium director at STRI and the University of Panama, explained that scanners today can take high-resolution images of both sides of a specimen.</p>
<p>"This is much better than seeing the plants in a microscope," Correa told SciDev.Net. "And you don’t have to travel to herbaria in other countries and spend a lot of money to see a <br />
type specimen. All the information will be in the digital database."</p>
<p>Correa says the database should be fully functional by mid-2008.</p>
<p>The new initiative is sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, also supporter of the African Plant Initiative, which so far has resulted in a network of 60 partners and more than 300,000 scanned items.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LAPI is already recruiting new staff to Latin American herbaria, said STRI. According to Correa Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia already have high-resolution scanners, and Panama and other small nations are in the process of acquiring theirs. </p>
<p>Staff from the Smithsonian’s US National Herbarium, the UK Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and the Missouri and New York Botanical Gardens will scan their Latin American plant collections and offer technical advice to the other institutions.</p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/latin-american-botanists-to-get-plant-database/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/news/latin-american-botanists-to-get-plant-database/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

An initiative to put thousands of botanical specimens from Latin America into a single online database is underway.

The Latin American Plant Initiative (LAPI) will scan botanical ‘type’ specimens — the original specimen on which the description of a new species is based — with a view to improving plant science research and teaching.

LAPI’s first meeting took place at the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) last month (23–25 October).

There were 140 specialists from 70 herbaria housing collections of Latin American plants, who negotiated terms for making digital images and information available.

Type specimens, collected over centuries from Latin America, are spread over several herbaria in Europe, Latin America and the United States. LAPI aims to gather them together in a single digital network.

Mireya Correa, herbarium director at STRI and the University of Panama, explained that scanners today can take high-resolution images of both sides of a specimen.

"This is much better than seeing the plants in a microscope," Correa told SciDev.Net. "And you don’t have to travel to herbaria in other countries and spend a lot of money to see a
type specimen. All the information will be in the digital database."

Correa says the database should be fully functional by mid-2008.

The new initiative is sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, also supporter of the African Plant Initiative, which so far has resulted in a network of 60 partners and more than 300,000 scanned items.

LAPI is already recruiting new staff to Latin American herbaria, said STRI. According to Correa Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia already have high-resolution scanners, and Panama and other small nations are in the process of acquiring theirs.

Staff from the Smithsonian’s US National Herbarium, the UK Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and the Missouri and New York Botanical Gardens will scan their Latin American plant collections and offer technical advice to the other institutions.