Digitizing Engelmann's Legacy

Digitizing Engelmann’s Legacy:
Chris Freeland
Director, Center for Biodiversity Informatics Missouri Botanical Garden
Mapping Plant Specimens that Document the Great American Frontier ESRI Education User Conference – July 13, 2010 – San Diego, CA http://www.tropicos.org/Project/Engelmann

Project objectives
Select, database & image 8,000 herbarium specimens from pioneering expeditions into the American frontier
Digitize 100 volumes of field literature
Integrate geospatial analysis tools into Tropicos ( http://www.tropicos.org )
Make all data openly available at http://www.tropicos.org/project/engelmann
Agave wislizenii Engelm.

http://www.mobot.org MOBOT: Now

Founded by Henry Shaw
Opened to the public in 1859
Public display + education + science
MOBOT: Then

MOBOT Science: Now

MOBOT Science: Then George Engelmann Asa Gray Wm. Jackson Hooker

George Engelmann (1809 – 1884)
Physician & amateur botanist
Founder of St. Louis Academy of Sciences
Founding member of National Academy of Sciences
Thanks, Wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann

US botanical exploration post-Lewis & Clark St. Louis: Gateway to the West ? X Engelmann more … Josiah Gregg Freidrich Wislizenus Ferdinand Lindheimer

Heuchera sanguinea Engelm. Plant specimens document occurrence Collection Information Collectors:
Wislizenus
Collection Number: 210 Collection Date: 06 October 1846 Location: Mexico, Chihuahua Elevation: 7,000 ft Description: Crimson flower Locality: Mountains, rocks, at Llanos near Cosiquiriachi.

Data origin & annotation over time ^ 2.Herbarium label: synthesized data < 1.Field label: origin of data ^ 3.Annotation: locality 4.Annotation: revision >

Data Storage: Tropicos.org http://www.tropicos.org/Specimen/1700971

Tropicos : http://www.tropicos.org
MOBOT’s botanical information system
3.8 million specimen records
1.2 million plant names
98,000 collectors / authors
140,000 images
Maps via ESRI tools & other technologies…
ArcIMS in 2000, just recently taken offline
ArcGIS Server 9.3 & JavaScript API in 2009-2010

http://www.tropicos.org/project/engelmann

Geocoding legacy collections = hard, skilled work < Geocode? Read??

Field notebooks & historic printed literature can help http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/91553

Neat-o! But…why is this important??
First documented occurrence of plant species in the American frontier
Westward expansion brought invasive plants, habitat loss, other pressures on native plants
Base data for secondary analyses
Can do things with the data after “unlocking” them from physical storage
American scientific & cultural heritage
These specimens represent:

Heuchera sanguinea = Coral bells Common Name: coral bells Zone: 3 to 9  Plant Type: Herbaceous perennial Family: Saxifragaceae Native Range: Western United States Height: 1 to 1.5 feet

Acknowledgements
ESRI
Institute of Museum & Library Services
Tropicos Development team: Jay Paige, Heather Stimmel, Craig Geil
MOBOT Herbarium staff
MOBOT Library & Archives staff
Botanists, scientists, students, explorers
And of course, George Engelmann!

Links & Resources
Engelmann Project: http://www.tropicos.org/project/engelmann
Tropicos: http://www.tropicos.org
Biodiversity Heritage Library: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Missouri Botanical Garden: http://www.mobot.org
MOBOT Images: http://www.mobot.org/mobot/archives http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbgarchives

Thanks! Questions?
Chris Freeland
Director, Center for Biodiversity Informatics Missouri Botanical Garden
Email: [email_address] Twitter: @chrisfreeland Blog / info: chrisfreeland.com Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/chrisfreeland/ http://www.tropicos.org/Project/Engelmann

Digitizing Engelmann's Legacy

by Chris Freeland on Jul 13, 2010

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