2 Millionth Plant Specimen Digitized - Rare Native Carnivorous Plant

The New York Botanical Garden recently added the two-millionth plant specimen to its digital research collection - Sarracenia purpurea - a purple pitcher plant, a very rare native carnivorous species that was collected at a highly protected preserve in Dutchess County, New York. Read more here.

Sarracenia purpurea

The purple pitcher plant is in decline in much of its range.

 (Photo by Robert Naczi, Ph.D.)

Crowd Sourcing The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium Plant Database

Help Contribute to Our Understanding of Biodiversity, the Environment, and Global Climate Change

The William and Linda Steere Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden houses over 7 million plant specimens gathered from around the world for over the past two hundred and fifty years.

Plants supply most of the world’s food, fuel, shelter and medicine, and plant specimens help us answer the most critical questions facing our planet. Questions such as: “How many species are there and how are they related? What environmental factors control their growth? And how do plants respond to climate change?”

Now you can help scientists to better understand our planet by transcribing plant specimen labels in our newly released crowd sourcing effort, hosted by the Atlas of Living Australia.

Choose an expedition studying the Oaks of North America or the Plants of the Caribbean. Click the “Start Transcribing” button to log in and get started.

Click here to start transcribing Oaks of North America or the Plants of the Caribbean

To learn more about the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, make sure to watch “Treasures of New York: The New York Botanical Garden” this Thursday, June 27th at 10:30pm on channel Thirteen.

Herbarium - The Movie, by Alister Sanderson

Herbarium - an Alister Sanderson film with music by John Stone and the Queens Chamber Band.

Finally, the answer to "What is an Herbarium?"

Digitizing Herbarium Specimens in Vietnam - From Isolation to Integration

Pictures from the digital imaging station installation and training at the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources at the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi, Vietnam. In less than a week, the students and staff were producing over fifty high resolution images per hour.

Nguyen The Cuong, Ph.D. showing specimens in the herbarium.

The digital imaging station is assembled.

Digital imaging training with: (standing, left to right)Do Van Hai, MS., Tean Thi Thanh Huong, Vu Anh Thuong (seated, left to right) Duong Thi Hoan, Ph.D. Nguyen the Cuong, Ph.D., and Nguyen Van Hieu.

Do Thi Xuyen, Ph.D. digitizing specimens with Nguyen Van Hieu.

Vu Anh Thuong preparing a specimen for Nguyen Thanh Huong, Ph.D. to digitize.

Full specimen image

100% detail

Label

Herbaria as Tools for Biogeographical and Environmental Studies - Benefit From the Computerization of Collections

Pachystachys spicata

“Plant specimens stored in herbaria are being used as never before to document the impacts of global change on humans and nature," writes Claude Lavoie in his recent paper Biological collections in an ever changing world: Herbaria as tools for biogeographical and environmental studies.

Lavoie has gathered statistics on the use of herbarium specimens in papers that “study pollution caused by carbon dioxide, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, nitrogen, and phosphorus,” and “to identify priority sites for protected areas, especially in Africa and South America.”

The digitization of collections has dramatically increased the number of specimens included in studies. Lavoie writes that since 2004 “82 studies benefited from the computerization of collections. Indeed, the median number of specimens per study rose from 226 (without the use of computerized collections) to 15,295 (with the use of computerized collections)”

Digitizing Seaweed - "Preserving the Forest of the Sea"

"This year, with the click of a mouse and high-speed internet access, seaweed scientists around the world will be able to more quickly and methodically study the impact of climate change on large swathes of seaweeds archived at the University Herbarium at UC Berkeley. Funded by a grant she submitted to the National Science Foundation, in 2011, Miller and her team began taking high-resolution photographs of nearly 80,000 specimens of seaweed collected from the west coast of North America. Undergraduate work-study students have been invaluable to this project, photographing up to 400 specimens a day." - Sheraz Sadiq Keep Reading

Selected Plant Specimens From The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium

Click here to see more specimens selected from The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium

Employment Opportunity - Herbarium Intern

This is a full-time temporary 8-10 week Internship. 

The Summer Intern will digitize specimens of plants from The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium, and participate in related Herbarium activities.

• Capture digital images of specimens.
• Sort and re-file digitized specimens.
• Participate in Web-based presentation about some aspect of the project for a general audience, e.g., videos, blogs, etc.

Requirements:

• Current undergraduate, graduate student or recent graduate.
• Course work in Biology preferred.
• Experience with digital photography and herbarium procedures is desired.

For more information, please visit http://www.nybg.org/employment/

North American Lichens and Bryophytes

This excellent video describes the workflow for digitizing the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium's collection of North American Lichens and Bryophytes was produced our own Charles Zimmerman.

Standardized Digital Imaging and Archiving Procedures - TDWG 2011

TDWG 2011, October 18

Below is a copy of the presentation that I delivered at TDWG, covering everything from the use of color checkers, resolution and image size, color spaces, and the selection of digital camera equipment. The link will take you to Google Documents where you can view the presentation online or download it as a .pdf.

Click to download .pdf

Not included in the .pdf is this video of Elizabeth Kiernan, NYBG Herbarium Intern, digitizing specimens:

TDWG Conference - Standardized Digital Imaging and Archiving Procedures

I have recently had several requests for information regarding the new Herbarium imaging stations.

I am in the early stages of preparing a step by step guide to building one, but as you can see from the images below, it's a simple design (and fairly easy to set up, once you have the right parts).

I hope to present this, along with a more comprehensive discussion about imaging and archiving procedures at the upcoming TDWG Conference in New Orleans.

Side view

Front view

In the Herbarium

I will be posting all of this information online. Please stay tuned.

NYBG Herbarium - Kohlmeyer Collection

A great behind the scenes look at the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium.



Produced by Jessi Allen, Liz Kiernan, and Charlie Zimmerman.

MK Direct Photo e-Box 1419 - NYBG Mod - Preview

I just received a new MK Direct Photo e-Box 1419 with a modified opening on top.

Jaime, Felix and Ruben at MK Direct have been exceptionally helpful with this project. I thought I was going to have to make modifications to the box myself, but when I explained what I needed, they generously offered to do it for me.

The results are fantastic. This is the first shot I took with the new box using the Canon Eos 1ds Mark III with a 50mm Macro lens:

Eysenhardtia officinalis

Update - Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - Bussy Saint-Georges Scanning Facility

I have updated the information in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - Bussy Saint-Georges Scanning Facility presentation and reposted it. The new presentation includes a better description of the role of the contractors and a more accurate cost per specimen.


Thanks to Odile Poncy and Simon Chagnoux for their input.

Click here for the updated presentation.