Workpackages of Subproject E15

Workpackage WP15.1

Biodiversity information systems for East African insect collections

Short description: The main aim is the deposition and digitisation of zoological voucher specimens (mainly insects) from all BIOTA East sub-projects (integrated aspect) in Kenya (at NMK) and in Germany (at ZFMK). Thereafter the complete information stored with the museums material can be made directly accessible and available via the World Wide Web.

Since digitisation of mass collections, such as insects, at the specimen level is normally not integrated in the daily work of museums staff worldwide capacity building in Kenya (especially at NMK) is a key element of this subproject.

Thereby we can use the BIODAT software, a specimen based database, which should be adapted to the German GBIF Portal within the next three years (DIG project in the German GBIF subnode Insecta).

Methods

• Capacity buildung at NMK:
• Digitisation of museums collections (set up of a specimen based collection database)
1. Primary data capture by listing the systematic taxa with their storage place
2. Validity check of the systematic information against a systematical catalogue
3. Establishing a systematical catalogue by entering the updated systematic information including synonyms, hierarchy of taxa, authors, year, etc. into the database
4. Secondary data capture by listing locations, collectors, determinators etc.
5. Adding geographical attributes such as latitude, longitude and in a hierarchy such as province/area, state, country, continent/ocean and a link to the zoogeographical region
6. Establishing a geographical catalogue by entering the information into the database like the previous lists
7. Final data entry by using the previously formed catalogues and lists just by mouse clicking the information items that are needed.
8. Adding images of types and other important specimens with original label information

• Collection- & information management: Connection of the specimen based collection database to the BIOTA-East-GIS (Geographic Information System; see E02)
1. developing a tool to port information from the geographical catalogue to the GIS.

Workpackage WP15.2

Plants of Kakamega Forest, Mt. Elgon and Budongo Forest

Short description: As explained above, this work package aims at compiling plant specimen data from the BIOTA-East research sites. The field data as well as the relevant data stored at NMK including the over 2500 type specimens will be included in Visual Plants. In addition, available slides of species from the study sites will be scanned and included so as to provide undistorted images of the living plants. Herbarium specimens are pressed and dried and hence can be much distorted and usually lose the original colours of various parts especially the floral parts. It will thus be necessary to scan as many fresh specimens as possible on site (see illustrations below). This rather simple approach can be achieved within the three years of the project phase because the specialists from the herbarium of the NMK are to be trained in digitizing the plant specimen with a digital camera, in computing the images with Adobe Photoshop, and storing the information in Visual Plants.
www.visualplants.de

Methods

• Scanning of herbarium specimens at the NMK (Kenya): Using a digital camera allows preparing digital photographs of the specimen with a high resolution as well as preparing photographs of relevant taxonomic characteristics. The photographs will be stored at high resolution for future manipulation and compilation of the field guide. Smaller copies will be prepared for Visual Plants using Adobe Photoshop. The order of priority in scanning specimens will be as follows: herbarium specimensfrom Kakamega Forest; herbarium specimens from Mt. Elgon; type specimens at the NMK.
• Scanning of herbarium specimens in the Budongo Forest (Uganda): The small but valuable herbarium at Budongo Forest will be digitised to preserve the herbarium specimen from damage due to frequent handling and make the information available for all researchers at Budongo.
• Scanning of living plant material in the field in all sites: All members of the work package 2 will prepare flatbed scans or digital photographs of living plant material. This preserves the original color of the specimen as an important taxonomic attribute. All these scans will be stored in the original resolution and smaller copies included in Visual Plants.
• Digitizing existing slides of plants from the research sites: This will be done be the applicants Prof. Dr. Eberhard Fischer and Dr. Helmut Dalitz. Only one slide scanner is necessary because Dr. H. Dalitz has already a Nikon Coolscan 4000 slide scanner. The digitized slides will give information about the natural arrangement of flowers, leaves and fruits. Photographs can also show the habit of trees or the structure of the bark. Prof. Dr. Fischer has a huge collection of plant photographs from his former work from Kakamega Forest, but also from Budongo Forest and Mt. Elgon, which should also be included into the database.
• Compiling a field guide: The proposed field guide "A field guide to the vascular plants of Kakamega Forest" is meant to be an example within the BIOTA-framework on disseminating biodiversity information. It is expected that by the end of 2003 a paper prepared by the NMK researchers which provides a complete list of vascular plants from Kakamega Forest including some information on local uses will be published. This information will be included in the field guide. The technical aspects will be executed by Dr. Helmut Dalitz, who owns a licence of the DTP program Adobe Indesign, with which high quality colour photographs can be prepared for digital printing. Through this procedure the production of the field guide should be less expensive compared to the classical procedure.