From: Marita LaMonica <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 7 May 2013 16:48:26 -0400

*Apologies for cross-posting*

The Global Plants Initiative and JSTOR release online database for the
study of plants

New York, NY - May 7, 2013 The Global Plants Initiative (GPI), a
collaboration of more than 270 herbaria in 70 countries, and JSTOR
released “Global Plants,” a new community-contributed online database
for scientific researchers, conservationists and others engaged in
studying the world’s plant biodiversity.

Global Plants (plants.jstor.org) holds more than 1.8 million plant
type specimens—the authoritative records for plant species that are
catalogued in herbaria around the world—along with their scientific
names and classifications. It also includes complementary material
such as paintings, photographs and the correspondence of explorers who
originally discovered and collected various species.

The effort to bring these materials online originated with a small
group of herbaria, then called the African Plants Initiative (API).
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provided funding to API to digitize
African flora, specifically plant type specimens. The project grew to
incorporate herbaria and plants from Latin America and, ultimately,
became global in scale.

Today, GPI partner organizations from Argentina to Zimbabwe capture
data and use digital technologies to create high resolution images of
type specimens from their collections, as well as other types of
content that are contributed to the database. JSTOR acts as their
virtual hub, providing the production systems, support for digitizing
the types and a platform for the discovery and use of the content by
the partners’ own researchers as well as others at institutions
throughout the world.

“GPI has galvanized the bioinformatics community, establishing an
important precedent for global collaboration on a scale rarely seen in
any academic discipline,” said Lauren Raz, Instituto de Ciencias
Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

With this large and growing virtual herbaria in place, scientists and
students can explore plant life from local and global vantage points,
often discovering plants or colleagues they would not have located
previously.

“[Because of Global Plants], we have received many inquiries from
scientists all over the world making our herbarium more visible to the
botanical community and significantly increasing its value,” commented
Laura Iharlegui of Curadora del Herbario (LP), Museo de La Plata in
Argentina.

And then there are the possibilities of new discoveries. By building
Global Plants together, scientists hope to identify new species,
catalogue the destruction of species and better understand changes in
ecosystems over time.

“Global Plants is a perfect example of the way in which previously
collected information presented in a new format is stimulating
research that might otherwise never be undertaken,” said Ken Cameron,
a professor in the Department of Botany at University of Wisconsin,
Madison.

Global Plants has been in development for many years, tripling in
size, and is now transitioning from a grant-funded project to one that
the GPI partners and JSTOR hope will be sustained by a growing network
of institutions. The GPI partners will contribute financial support;
JSTOR will provide infrastructure and other services; and educational,
cultural and other not-for-profit research institutions will
contribute annual fees for access to some parts of the database.

“Our partners have a vested interest in ensuring the GPI collaboration
and database continue to thrive and grow,” stated Barbara M. Thiers,
director, William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical
Garden. “It is a landmark project for science, and a great example of
how the academic community can take advantage of technology to advance
research.”

About the Global Plants Initiative

The Global Plants Initiative (GPI) is an international undertaking by
leading herbaria to digitize and make available plant type specimens
and other holdings used by botanists and others working in botany and
other fields every day. Partners include more than 270 institutions in
more than 70 countries. Founding partners include Missouri Botanical
Garden; Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle; The National Herbarium,
Addis Ababa University; New York Botanical Garden; The Royal Botanical
Gardens, Kew; and the South African National Biodiversity Institute.
Visit plants.jstor.org to learn more.

For more information on Global Plants: http://about.jstor.org/global-plants

For the complete press release:
http://about.jstor.org/news/global-plants-initiative-and-jstor-release-online-database-study-plants