University of Alberta Museums

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1 University of Alberta Museums

2 Established in ,000 students in over 200 undergraduate and 170 graduate programs University of Alberta Museums

3 Collecting began when the University was established. University of Alberta Museums

4 University of Alberta Museums

5 Collections used primarily for teaching and research purposes. University of Alberta Museums

6 University of Alberta Museums

7 University of Alberta Museums

8 University of Alberta Museums

9 Herbaria and Entomological Collections at U. Alberta Curators and Collections (not including fossils): Department of Biological Sciences - in association with U Alberta Museums Jocelyn Hall - Vascular Plants Herbarium (ALTA) Catherine La Farge - Cryptogam Herbarium (ALTA) Heather Proctor - Freshwater Invertebrate Collection Felix Sperling - U. Alberta Strickland Entomological Museum (UASM) Devonian Botanical Garden (Dept. of Renewable Resources) - not w. UAM yet René Belland - Devonian Bot. Garden Herbar. (Bryophytes, Cultiv. Pl.) Lynne Sigler - Univ. Alberta Microfungus Collection and Herbarium (UAMH)

10 Herb. & Ent. Collection Holdings Curator Acronym Total no. Databased Images specimens pre/post-cubc Hall ALTA (Vasc) 120,000 27,000/ 42,000 2 per specm. planned La Farge ALTA (Crypt) 225,500 2,600/ 45,000 33,000 done Proctor Fr. Inverts (IN) 5,000 lots 5,000 incidental Sperling UASM > 1,000, ,000/ 200,000 species pages Belland none 20,000 14,000 planned Sigler UAMH 11,000 acces. 11, s of slides

11 Herbaria & Entomological Collection Data Access Curator Acronym Data entry Master Data Base Public access Hall ALTA (Vasc) Mimsy XG Mimsy XG UA site (end Jan. 09) La Farge ALTA (Crypt) Filemaker Pro [Mimsy XG] UA site (anticipated) Proctor Fr. Inverts (IN) done Mimsy XG GBIF; UA site Sperling UASM Excel Mimsy XG GBIF; UA site x2 Belland none MerlinSQL Firebird (SQL) ALES on-line site Sigler UAMH done MS SQL UAMH on-line site

12 UA Vascular Plant Herbarium: Needs and Hopes 1. Entire collection databased with images of specimens. 2. Species webpages for Albertan vascular plants including photos of live plants, description, etc.

13 Cryptogamic Herbarium (ALTA) Specimens total: 225,500 Bryophytes: 175,000 (3rd largest Bryophyte collection in Canada) Lichens: 40,000 Fungi: 12,500 33,000 specimens barcoded with label images 12,000 2,600 specimens databased 4,950 partially databased

14 Cryptogamic Herbarium (ALTA) Data input Station Objectives of CUBC Data essence: Label image & Barcode # (unique identifier) Database 45,000 (20%) On line Access: web interface specimen data - Canadian wide searches Mapping Catalogues e.g. Types (241; 342 incl. Paratypes) Future Wish List a) Funding for Qualified personnel: D-Base of remainder: 185,500 specimens b) Compound Research Microscope for essential species characters for illustration of the species represented in the collection. Species pages & specimen imaging. To complete imaging representative specimens. c) Funding for Maintenance for D-Base

15 2500 species pages 100+ K specimens databased

16 Species pages as: - living documents - publication drafts - course termpapers

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19 UA Microfungus Herbarium: Needs and Hopes 1. Major redevelopment of database and website to improve searching, updating, and adding new types of data, particularly images. 2. Develop online illustrated catalogue; web-based identification tool.

20 MerlinSQL The Herbarium Data Wizard René J. Belland - Devonian Bot. Garden MerlinSQL is a centralized data warehouse for herbarium data management, sharing, and analysis. Features: One central database containing plant occurrence information (housed at U of Alberta) Users contribute data, and share other users data Other users: UBC Cryptogamic Herbarium lichens and bryophytes Data Acadia University bryophytes (currently not active) Newfoundland Museum vascular plants, bryophytes (recently joined) University of Manitoba lichens and bryophytes Bryophytes 159,752 records Lichens 11,187 records Vasculars 41,908 records Total: 212,927 records

21 Technical details: MerlinSQL René J. Belland Devonian Bot. Garden Relational database format N-tier client/server database system Database engine Firebird 2.1 (open source) MerlinSQL Client Software - custom Windows software to access the data written in Delphi language Middle tier - Application server by Asta Technology Group Functions: Herbarium chores data entry Quick entry with custom glossaries, automatic authority lookups etc Creates flexible herbarium labels Fixed format, or design your own Full featured report generation tool Creates species distribution maps Use GIS map layers (ESRI or Mapinfo) Quick species lists Create lists by ecoregion, polygons, habitat etc Exports data to many popular formats Creates CANOCO files for multivariate analysis