| Abstract Detail
Floristics & Taxonomy Billings, Garrett [1], Sanchez-Ken, J. Gabriel [2], Barkworth, Mary [3], Long, Sandy [1]. Grasses of North America and Mexico. Floras are an invaluable tool for learning about and identifying plants. Most existing floras occur primarily as printed volumes that, in some instances, are also available online. Print volumes are, however, expensive to purchase and both difficult and expensive to modify. Until recently, Utah State University, copyright holder for the grass volumes on the Flora of North America north of Mexico, provided free online access to their contents but, in 2017, software security issues made it necessary to close the site. Many have requested that access be restored, but the security issues required redesigning the site. The redesign is built around two open source software programs, Keybase and Symbiota. Keybase displays the keys, linking the terminal taxa to taxon pages generated by OpenHerbarium, a Symbiota site. The illustrations and descriptions are available via OpenHerbarium. The descriptions, like the keys, are being modified to account for taxonomic changes since publication of the print volumes. Eventually, distribution maps will be drawn directly from herbaria in North America, including Mexico. This will be accomplished without requiring additional work from herbaria that are already sharing their records. Generating maps directly from specimen records will mean they are automatically modified as existing records are modified and new ones added. It will also make it easy to view distributions in more detail than before and compare the geographic and ecological distribution of taxa. Longer term goals include sharing records from outside North America and Mexico. In addition to updated treatments from the FNA volumes 24 & 25, the new website will include treatments of the grasses of Mexico using the recently published checklist of Mexican grasses (Sánchez-Ken, 2019) to determine the taxa to be included. This publication has identified some taxa that needed to be added to those growing in North America north of Mexico. Future plans include integrating the keys and descriptions with an illustrated glossary, a bibliography, and educational resources. While the focus of this project is on grasses of North America and Mexico, a similar approach is being used, with permission of the copyright holders, to increase access and update the Flora of Pakistan and the Flora of Somalia.
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Related Links:
Website for descriptions and illustrations
Website for keys
1 - Utah State University, Department of Biology, Logan, UT, 84322, USA
2 - INECOL, A.C., Botanica, Lázaro Cárdenas 253, Col. Centro, Pátzcuaro, MIC, 61600, Mexico
3 - Department Of Biology, 5305 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322, United States
Keywords:
none specified
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: FT, Floristics & Taxonomy
Location: Tucson J/Starr Pass
Date: Tuesday, July 30th, 2019
Time: 4:15 PM
Number: FT010
Abstract ID:946
Candidate for Awards:None |
