A grant has been awarded to Kansas State University under the direction of Dr. Carolyn Ferguson to support the computerization of the Kansas State University Herbarium (KSC). This collection contains 190,000 specimens from the Great Plains of North America. This collection of specimens and associated data provide a resource for understanding the ecosystem of the Great Plains, and the proposed database will make this resource available to scientists and educators worldwide. The project will capture data from plant specimen labels and enter them into the software program called Specify. This software will make the data accessible via the Internet to researchers interested in the identification, ecology, and distribution of plants of the region. Because the collection contains specimens collected throughout the last century, the completed database will allow comparisons of vegetation change over time and space and to study the early flora of the Great Plains. The database will be fully searchable, that is, scientists and other members of the public will be able to search for information on plants of the region using species names, localities, dates, and other terms in the database records. In addition to basic scientists, undergraduates at Kansas State University will be trained in data entry, georeferencing (determining from label data the sites where specimens were collected), curation methods (care and preservation of plant specimens), and the biodiversity of plants of the Great Basin. Several university courses will employ the database, including the introductory biology course, which will develop a focused exercise on the uses of natural history information. K-12 science classes and environmental education programs will use the database in secondary school workshops at the Konza Prairie Biological Station. The project will sponsor workshops that will train extension agents and other potential users throughout the state to use the database.
