9870215 Hansen Alaska has a coastline that extends 47,000 miles, longer than that of the rest of the United States combined. Its highly diverse coastal areas support a rich variety of marine organisms. Because of the extent and remoteness of most of the coastline and the severity of the weather, Alaska's marine biota has never been adequately inventoried. In particular, the benthic marine algae or "seaweeds" have never been treated systematically, and Alaska remains the last major region of the United States for which no marine Flora has ever been written. However, Alaska's marine algae are not entirely unknown. Naturalists and others have been making collections there for about 200 years. Some of these collections have been documented in publications, but by far the majority remain unreported in the scientific literature. Most of these collections, including those previously published, need re-examination in light of current systematic thought. As a first phase in the production of a Flora of the Benthic Marine Algae of Alaska, the authors will complete a comprehensive inventory of the existing collections of Alaskan benthic marine algae. Specimen information will be recorded in a relational database, errors in identification will be corrected, and nomenclature will be updated. Coordinates and other geographic data, missing from herbarium labels, will be incorporated into the database, and files containing descriptions and images of the species will be established in order to assure uniformity in identification. Completed products will include an Internet-accessible database on the benthic marine algae of Alaska, including the records of all known herbarium specimens collected in Alaska, and a checklist of the species, giving their geographic ranges within the state. These publications will form the foundation for our Flora; they also will provide essential ingredients for future studies on boreal seaweeds, contribute critical resource material to multiple users, and substantia lly increase our baseline knowledge of the Alaskan marine environment.
