UNM Herbarium

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UNM Herbarium

• Tim Lowrey and
• Jane Mygatt
• UNM Herbarium

Plant photography by Bob Sivinski
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Overview

• Importance of herbaria
• Virtual tour of the new UNM Herbarium
• Role of herbaria in science, education, and the
  broader ecological context
• Systematic research and
• on-going projects at UNM
• Bioinformatics (INRAM
• and Bio Geomancer)

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The Herbarium

• An herbarium is a
• collection of dried, pressed
• specimens of plants or
• plant parts
• Processed correctly,
• specimens serve as a
• record of populations of
• plants that are or were living
• components of the
• environment

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Why have herbaria?

• Specimens useful in plant systematics and other
  fields of biological science
• Historic and geographic archives
• Educational materials used to train students

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UNMs Herbarium

• Founded in 1928, UNM houses more than 115,000
  specimens of vascular plants, mosses, lichens,
  and seeds
• Completed databasing in 2004, data available
  on-line
• On-going efforts to georeference and image the
  collection

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Collections on compactor system SpaceSaversTM
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Storage units for vascular plants, lichens, and
mosses
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We welcome visitors and researchers to use
our herbarium and resources
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Visitor usage plays an important part of our
mission

• We encourage the use of our collections
• Our information and specimens are widely
  available via the internet and through loaning
  specimens
• We log more than 400
• visits per year
• Our visitors are researchers,
• consultants, students and
• the botanical enthusiast

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The herbarium specimen

• Represents a sample of a past or current
  population of plants
• Has label to provide the plants name and
  location, and other information about the plant
  and its habitat

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Why so many specimens?

• Species vary morphologically
• Demonstrates geographic and ecological range
• Needed for plotting species distributions
• Documents research Voucher specimens

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Part of a Cooperative Network of Herbaria

• Specimens are loaned to researchers at other
  institutions
• Incoming loans allow our researchers access to
  specimens from other herbaria
• Specimens are exchanged with other herbaria and
  gifts given in exchange for identification by
  specialists

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Specimen loans

• Loaning specimens provides a valuable service in
  terms of expert determinations
• Researchers receive materials from a wide
  geographic area
• Many researchers are authors for the Flora of
  North America Project (FNA)
• Molecular projects determine plant relationships
  (phylogenies)

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Traditional role

• Supports classical taxonomic studies, both
  floristic and monographic
• Resource for acquiring needed specimens (loans of
  specimens)
• Resource for identifying and verifying unknown
  species

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Molecular studies

• Herbaria are repositories for vouchers used in
  biosystematic research
• Specimens can provide a source of DNA (using
  destructive sampling) where collecting fresh
  material is not feasible

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Broader issues

• Herbaria support biodiversity research, useful in
  management and conservation projects
• Herbaria are databasing their collections to
  increase collaboration and accessibility to
  specimen information

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Biodiversity Project

• Institute for Natural Resource Analysis and
  Management (INRAM)- Overall Goals Databasing of
  natural history collections
• Improve natural history museum staff
  infrastructure
• Capture specimen-based data in electronic format
  from major natural history collections in New
  Mexico
• Integrated/combined format (plant and animal
  data)
• Geo-reference data
• Available and searchable via the Internet
• Basic infrastructure necessary to ask questions
  about biodiversity of New Mexico

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The New Mexico Biodiversity Collections
Consortium (NMBCC) Gateway to New Mexico
Biodiversity allows you to search for NM
specimens housed in the Herbarium.
http//nmbiodiversity.org/
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Herbarium community service and resource
development