UNAM
Revista Digital Universitaria
Revista Digital Universitaria ISSN: 1607 - 6079 | Publicación mensual | 1 de abril de 2014 vol.15, No.04

ABSTRACT

Digitization of the National Herbarium of Mexico: advances and future challenges



David S. Gernandt, Víctor Sánchez-Cordero, Ubaldo Melo Samper, Oliver Joaquín Giménez, Gerardo Salazar


The National Herbarium of Mexico holds the largest collection of dried specimens in Latin America, an invaluable resource for biodiversity research in Mexico and Central America. A digitization project supported by the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) was initiated in June 2012 for the National Biological Collections housed at the Institute of Biology, including the National Herbarium. Collection data are being captured from digital photographs of the herbarium's mounted vascular plants. A third of the collection, more than 500,000 specimens, have been photographed in the first 21 months of the project. Some of the Herbarium's collection, particularly fruits, seeds, fungi, and lichens, are being captured directly from labels, without being photographed, totaling more than 530,000 digitized plants and fungi. One hundred and fifty vascular plants families are 100% digitized. Families Poaceae, Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, and Cactaceae have the greatest number of accessions captured. The specimen database is being managed with PostgreSQL and other open source software under development at the Institute of Biology. One of the greatest challenges in this project is to provide reliable data for taxonomic and biodiversity informatic studies. Automated data quality protocols have been implemented to validate and correct taxonomic and geographic information, and more are in development. The continuous participation of taxonomists is an indispensable requisite for maintaining both the physical and digital collection.



Keywords: Digitization, herbarium, biodiversity, national biological collections