Computerization of the Lichen Collection at the Michigan State University Herbarium

Andrew J. JOHNSON, Alan M. FRYDAY & L. Alan PRATHERHerbarium, Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. e-mail: fryday@msu.edu

The Collection:The lichen collection of the Michigan State University Herbarium (MSC) totals over 110,000 accessioned specimens from many regions of the world. Specifically, there are excellent holdings from:North America: Eastern seaboard of the US and Canada, Great Lakes region, Pacific Coast of Canada, Alpine areas of the Rocky MountainsSouthern South America: Falkland Islands, Juan Fernandez Islands, Fuegia-PatagoniaNew Zealand: South Island, Subpolar IslandsIles Kerguelen, the Caribbean Islands, and the Canary Islands.

This extensive collection was assembled largely through the efforts of Dr. Henry A. Imshaug, the curator of the Cryptogamic Herbarium from 1958-1990, and his students, who included Irwin Brodo, Richard Harris, and Clifford Wetmore.

The availability of the data on the Internet will serve as a form of data repatriation to the many countries, especially developing ones, from which the collections were made. It will also impact the ongoing biodiversity crisis that affects, in particular, many of the tropical and subtropical regions represented among the collections.

The Database:We are using SPECIFY <http://www.specifysoftware.org> to enter the data and, after overcoming the initial problems involved with learning a new system and customizing the data entry form to suit our purposes, data is now being entered at over 1500 records/week.

Data are being entered mostly by student workers and are verified by MSU Herbarium staff. So far nine undergraduate students, two graduate students, and one additional full-time, temporary staff member have received training in herbarium procedures and gained experience with lichens as part of this project.

We have entered the data from all of our accessioned collections from Australasia, South America, the Caribbean, and Michigan and, as of summer 2004, are currently working on the North American collections. We anticipate making this database available and searchable on line in the near future, but until then we welcome requests for information. We can query the database by any field using any of the usual operators. We have already responded to requests for information on chemical content of a lichen species across its geographical range, and lichens collected from specific areas.

The Project:In May 2003 we began a 3 year project, financed by NSF (Award No. DBI-0237401), to computerize the label data from our entire lichen collection and make it available and searchable on-line. Because of the geographic scope of the collection the database will be extremely useful to researchers working on all aspects of the natural environment of the areas covered by the collection.

Henry Imshaug on Campbell Island in 1970(Photo by Dale Vitt)

All data associated with the specimens (collector, collection date, locality, and habitat) are being enteredinto the database, along with any additional information added as annotations, (e.g. chemistry, spore dimensions, apothecial pigments). All name changes and additional species present on the specimen are also being recorded.