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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2016
- Title: Harvard Forest Herbarium Digitization Project
- Primary Author: David Orwig (Harvard Forest)
- Additional Authors: Elaine Doughty (Harvard Forest); David Foster (Harvard University); Jenny Hobson (Harvard Forest); Glenn Motzkin (University of Massachusetts - Amherst ); Taylor Orwig (Worcester State University); Julie Pallant (Harvard Forest); Tristram Seidler (University of Massachusetts - Amherst )
- Abstract:
To increase accessibility to over 1.3 million regional herbarium specimens in New England, Harvard Forest has joined with 14 other institutions in a collaborative NSF grant to digitize local flora collections. Over the last 2 years, each of the more than 4000 specimens representing more than 800 species in the HF herbarium has been digitally captured at the University of Massachusetts Herbarium to be made available on the internet, barcoded, and cataloged in our HF Herbarium database. This process also incorporated over 200 new specimens to our collection, which were verified, mounted, and labelled. New specimens came from several sources including recentl sampling at the Simes tract and the Harvard Farm (formerly the Petersham Country Club), as well as 166 recently acquired specimens from the Bentley University Herbarium that were originally collected by William. H. Drury Jr. and others, on or near Harvard Forest property in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Three of these species, along with 40 new species from the Harvard Farm recently collected by Glenn Motzkin are new additions to the historical flora of Harvard Forest. The digital images will be available in the near future as the grant project continues. These images and associated data will be useful for education and outreach, regional floristic studies, and understanding the patterns of vegetation change at local to global scales.
- Research Category: Biodiversity Studies
Historical and Retrospective Studies
