AVH - Australia’s Virtual Herbarium

Logo

Tim Entwisle and Judy WestCouncil of Heads of Australian

Herbaria

Definitions• Australia’s Virtual Herbarium • Council of Heads of Australian

Herbaria (CHAH): 8 + 1 + 1• The task - 6 million specimens,

40% done• HISPID - standards• HISCOM - IT committee

How we got to where we are

• 1995 - HISCOM recommends the AVH concept (a distributed database) to CHAH

• 1997 - Canvassed at Systematics meeting• 1999 - Proof of concept with Acacia• 2000 - Government Minister shows interest• 2000 - Interest from industry/foundations• 2000 - Negotiating cost & lobbying

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND

ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION COUNCIL

• Government committee of Commonwealth and State/Territory Environment Ministers

• Accepted that the community wanted the product

• Funding options and regional support• Working group• Project design input - new name

The agreement• $10 million project over five years• Capture new data and validate old• State/Territory to contribute amount

relative to specimens to be databased/validated

• $4 million Commonwealth + $4 million State/Territory + $2 million private

• Sharing data critical to cost (cf. $16 million)

Recent activity• Major item at October CHAH meeting

- Agreement on what information we provide to community - Priority groups and ‘Who does what?’

• Trust to oversee financial arrangements

• Liaison and Advisory Committee

Added extras - the real AVH

• Stage 1: databasing (dots on maps)• Plus map overlays, precision flags, spatial

queries, pretty interfaces, etc.• Conflicting taxonomies - towards a

National Census• Stage 2+: images, descriptions,

identification tools• Multiple resources and options

(cf. library)

The pilot

Overlays

Geocode accuracySurvey data

GREENING THE GRAINBELT Uses

Uses

Plus

But...

Integrated strategies for tackling fungal biodiversity

Problem: 250,000 spp., 5% known, few herbarium collections

Solution: Fungimap Community mapping of 100 common species by

600 volunteers Distribution and habitat data leads to better

conservation and systematics

But...

Why it will work• Communication - CHAH, few herbaria• Collaboration - long-standing, data sharing,

overcoming Australia’s Federal/State system• Champions - management, public• Lobbying and profile of herbaria• Relevance of product• And now…we need to maintain commitment

to project (e.g. impact on research outputs and other organisational initiatives)