Laura Maihofer, electronic imaging technician, imaging the specimen note cards of Edwin B. Mains, who was a prominent mycologist at U-M who served as director of the Herbarium, president of the Mycological Society of America, and described many new fungi among other achievements. Image credit: Matthew Foltz.
University of Michigan’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department recently published two articles in a series on the University of Michigan Herbarium’s efforts to digitize their collection.
The first article highlights the herbarium’s participation in the TCN project "Plants, Herbivores, and Parasitoids: A Model System for the study of Tri-trophic Associations” (Tri-trophic TCN). Dr. Richard Rabeler, associate research scientist at the Herbarium, is the principal investigator. As part of their contributions for the TCN, The University of Michigan Herbarium has been imaging all of their North American and Mexican specimens of Cyperaceae (sedges) and Poaceae (grasses). Approximately 116,000 specimens have been imaged.
The second article by Mathew Foltz, the Macrofungi project manager, highlights the University of Michigan Herbarium’s digitization efforts relating to their mushroom-producing fungi collection. The University of Michigan Herbarium is involved in the TCN project "Macrofungi Collection Consortium: Unlocking a Biodiversity Resource for Understanding Biotec Interactions, Nutrient Cycling and Human Affairs". Since starting their macrofungi digitization efforts two-and-a-half years ago, the University of Michigan Herbarium has completed digitization and initial data record creation of approximately 140,000 collections.
To read more about the University of Michigan Herbarium’s digitization efforts visit the original press releases:
