Event: Alabama Plant Atlas Reception
Time: Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, at 10 a.m
Event Type: Community/Education Reception
Location: Kelly Land Hall on the University of West Alabama campus-Livingston
Cost: Free
Event Website: www.floraofalabama.org www.centerforblackbelt.org
Sponsor: Division of Educational Outreach at UWA
Contact: Dr. Brian Keener (205) 652- 3796 bkeener@uwa.edu
Info: The Division of Educational Outreach at the University of West Alabama will host a reception for the Alabama Plant Atlas (APA), created by UWA’s Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Dr. Brian Keener, on Friday, Jan. 27 at 10 a.m. at Kelly Lank Hall on the UWA campus.
The event celebrates the official launch of the APA, which is a website [floraofalabama.org] that catalogues the vascular flora of Alabama. Within the Atlas, every vascular species (flowering plants, conifers, ferns) known to occur in Alabama (native or non native) basically has its own home page within the Atlas. Legacy, Inc. and UWA primarily funded the online project.
“From the Atlas homepage, users can browse or do simple or advanced searches. When viewing a species page, photos of the species and other information are available,” explained Keener. “This includes, distribution, conservation status, native or non-native, wetland status, citations, and other notes. Also on each page are links to actual specimen images that vouch for the species’ presence in Alabama.”
“The Atlas is useful to professionals, amateurs, or someone just casually interested,” said Keener. “The Atlas has been visible during development and has receives on average about a hundred hits each day. Since December 2010, there have been visitors from all 50 states and over 100 countries.”
The driving force of the APA is herbarium specimens. An herbarium is a collection of pressed and dried plant specimens that document the flora of a region, in this case Alabama. The concept of these plant repositories has been in use since the 1500s but have been active in Alabama only for about the last 130 years. “Our state herbaria are invaluable as they contain and continue to grow a wealth of information about our ever-changing and extremely diverse flora” said Keener. “Unfortunately, very few people are aware or have access to these collections.”
To create the APA, Keener and other herbarium curators formed the Alabama Herbarium Consortium. The mission of the consortium was to create an avenue to disseminate data stored in state herbaria to interested users. “With the creation of the consortium, all of the major herbaria in Alabama agreed to pool specimen data into this common virtual environment”, said Keener. “We do not have a large herbarium in Alabama compared to other states, but collectively the sheer number of specimens becomes respectable”.
So far, seven different herbaria have contributed data. These include Anniston Museum of Natural History, Auburn University, Jacksonville State University, Samford University, The University of Alabama, Troy University, and UWA of which Keener is curator. “The curators are databasing furiously which is allowing us to add more data every week” said Keener. I am very grateful for these curators and the consortium, they are what makes the Atlas work”.
For more information on the Alabama Plant Atlas reception, please contact the University of West Alabama’s Division of Educational Outreach at 205-652-3828. For Alabama Plant Atlas information, please contact Dr. Brian Keener at bkeener@uwa.edu or 205-652-3796.