Collecting quantitative metadata by counting all specimens in a herbarium

Talk at the TDWG 2011 annual conference in New Orleans, United States - October 18, 2011.

What information do you get when you count all specimens in a herbarium?

Transcript

1. Collec&ng   quan&ta&ve  metadata   by  coun&ng  all  specimens  in  a   herbarium   Peter   Desmet  
2. Quan&ta&ve  metadata  are  cool!   A  very  colourful  presenta&on  by   @peterdesmet  #tdwg  
3. Index  Herbariorum   350,000,000   herbarium  specimens  worldwide  
4. 25,000,000   digi&zed  and  published  (=  7%)   GBIF  Data  Portal  (Andrea  Hahn)  
5. What  do  we  know  about  the  other   93%  ?  
6. Descrip&ve   metadata  
7. Metadata  registries   bit.ly/IH-­‐herbaria   biocol.org  
8. Collec&on  name  +  code   Address   Staff   Subcollec&ons  
9. Es&mated  size   Based  on  what?   Actually  counted?  
10. Geographic  scope   Pre^y  well  described   How  distributed?  
11. Taxonomic  scope   Vascular  plants  +  Bryophytes?   Families?   Genera?  
12. Can  we  get  some  real  numbers?  
13. Vascular  plants  specimens   are  organized  in   Folders  
18. What  if  we  counted  the  folders?  
19. And  the  #  of  specimens  per  folder?  
20. ?  $   How  much  would  it  cost?  
21. ?  days   How  long  would  it  take?  
22. What  we  did  at  the   Marie-­‐Victorin   Herbarium  (MT)  
23. Move  an  es&mated  900,000  specimens  
24. More  space   Reassign  350  -­‐>  640  cases  
25. New  classifica&on   Flowering  plants:  APG  III  (2009)   Ferns:  Smith  et  al.  (2006)  
26. Coun&ng   Digi&zing   Data  cleaning   Publishing  
27. Coun&ng  
29. Average  age  >  60  
31. 1  summer  
32. 826  work  hours   110  work  days,  22  work  weeks  
33. Digi&zing  
34. 4  volunteers  
35. Paper  -­‐>  Excel  
36. Data  cleaning  
37. 2  volunteers   1  professor   1  informa&cian  
38. Correc&ng  errors   Typos,  missed  genera,  dubious  counts  
39. New  classifica&on   Assigning  families,  correc&ng  genera  
40. Format  data  
41. Publishing  
42. 1  informa&cian   (me)  
43. Google  Fusion  Tables   bit.ly/mt-­‐inventory-­‐gk  
44. Darwin  Core  Archive  via  IPT   bit.ly/mt-­‐inventory  
45. Metadata  =  EML   Descrip&ve  metadata  
46. Occurrence  dataset   basisOfRecord  =  PreservedSpecimen  
47. 1  record   1  folder   1  genus   1  loca&on   in  1  tray  
48. #  specimens   individualCount  
49. What  do  we   know  now?  
50. 22,298   folders  
51. 628,664   specimens  
52. 2/3   of  previous  es&mate  
53. 21.5%   digi&zed  
54. 380   families  
55. 82%   of  known  families  
56. 5,298   genera  
57. 6   con&nents  
58. Combina&ons   Rubus  specimens  from  Canada?   Yes:  2921,  in  trays  A236-­‐07  –  A238-­‐04    
59. Useful  for  us   In-­‐house  management  &  planning   Digi&za&on  priori&es  
60. Useful  for  others?   Loans   Demand  driven  digi&za&on?  
61. Granularity   Genus,  con&nent  -­‐>  Useful  for  climate   change  &  invasive  species  studies?  
62. Global  picture   Really  350  mil.  specimens?   How  distributed  over  genus  &   con&nent?  
63. Cost  /  Time  ?  
64. 158   work  days   Publishing  1%   Data  cleaning  21%   Digi&zing  8%   Coun&ng  70%  
65. 5,740  $   total  salary  cost   Publishing  7%   Digi&zing  0%   Coun&ng  37%   Data  cleaning  56%  
66. 110  specimens  =  1$   100  &mes  cheaper  than  full  digi&za&on  
67. 3,200,000  $   All  350  mil.  specimens  
68. 138  h     1049  h   Staff  5,740  $   Volunteers  0  $   88%  by  volunteers  
69. 16,230  $   10$  wage  for  “volunteers”  +  staff  salary  
70. 9,000,000  $   All  350  mil.  specimens  
71. 340  years   1  person  at  7.5h/day,  5  days/week,  no   holidays  
72. 26  days   One  person  per  herbarium   3,400  herbaria  -­‐  Index  Herbariorum  
73. ?!   Tricky  to  extrapolate!   What  about  non-­‐mounted  specimens?   How  useful  is  this  data?   Is  there  a  metadata  repository?  
74. First  step   Towards  some  real  numbers  
75. Thanks!   bit.ly/mt-­‐inventory   Peter   Desmet