Names Of Collectors Research Articles

An Ethnobotanical Study of Pinswari Community - a Preliminary Survey

The egregious, idyllic, non-xenophobic Pinswari community is an isolated community dwelling in the remote hills of the Tehri District of Uttar Pradesh, India. They are the descendants of the Jaads (Huniyas) and are still isolated in the sense that normally do not have marital' relation with the Garhwalis. Based on ethnobotanical survey (1983-1988) 108 plant species which are used as medicines, Ebre yielders, in arts and crafts, and in agricultural implements are reported. Correct botanical name, family, local name, collector's name (abbreviated as AKB) and number and detailed uses as given by local informants are given under each entry.

The Grasses of Lucknow District

This paper gives an account of the grasses of Lucknow District. About 65 genera and 130 species belonging to the 3 tribes of Panicoideae and 15 tribes of Pooideae are described. Of these 18 tribes the tribe Paniceae, Andropogoneae, Eragrosteae and, Chlorideae are dominant in having 48, 31, 18 and 8 species respectively. Keys to the tribes, sub-tribes, genera and species are given. Correct names, notes on habit and habitat, exact localities of occurrence, names of collectors and their field numbers are appended to every species enumerated.

Nomenclature standards of honeysuckle varieties selected by the Pavlovsk Experimental Station of the Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources

Nomenclature standards of 17 varieties of honeysuckle selected by the Pavlovsk Experimental Station of N. I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources (VIR) were developed under the Project on creation nomenclature standards for varieties of cultivated plants of domestic selection in the VIR. Plant material for herbarium specimens designated as nomenclature standards was gathered at the flowering and fruiting stages (2020, 2021) in the collection of the originator (Pushkinsk and Pavlovsk laboratories of VIR) in assistance of a cobreeder of these varieties. The herbarization process involves selecting variety-specific parts of the plant (flowers, vegetative and generative shoots, berries). A herbarium label specifies a herbarium code of the specimen in the VIR herbarium, a Latin name of the species, a name of the variety, an origin (name of the organization where the variety was created), a place of generation (where the herbarium plant was grown), dates of collection, names of collectors. Each herbarium specimen is supplemented with photographs of flowers and berries. The nomenclature standards were drawn in accordance with the recommendations of The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) as well as the VIR-developed protocol, and were registered in the VIR herbarium database. As a result of the study, nomenclature standards of the following honeysuckle varieties were created, formalized and deposited in the Herbarium of Cultivated plants of the world, their wild relatives and weeds (WIR): Altair (WIR-97772), Amphora (WIR-97778), Bogdana (WIR-97780), Viola (WIR-97784), Volkhova (WIR-97785), Lebedushka (WIR97834), Malvina (WIR-97837), Morena (WIR-97838), Nympha (WIR-97839), Omega (WIR-97840), Pavlovskaya (WIR-97841), Pushkinskaya (WIR-97842), Slavyanka (WIR-97845), Sodruzhestvo (WIR-97847), Solovey (WIR97848), Souvenir (WIR-97975), Fialka (WIR-97978).

Replicability in palaeobotany: Toward a standardization of citation of extant material

Replicability is a key concept in science. The citation of extant material used for comparative purposes in palaeobotanical studies is the sine qua non of this replicability. However, there is no standard for citing herbarium sheets, personal collections, or field pictures of specimens. Here, I propose a simple citation guideline for all these cases, emphasizing the citation of the voucher specimens using the collector's name and collection number.

Nomenclatural standards of pear varieties bred by Sverdlovsk Horticultural Breeding Station

As part of the research there have been developed and published nomenclatural standards of 12 pear varieties bred by Sverdlovsk Horticultural Breeding Station: Berezhenaya (WIR-101392), Gvidon (WIR-101393), Dobryanka (WIR-101394), Zarechnaya (WIR-101395), Permyachka (WIR-101397), Raduzhnaya (WIR-101398), Rozovyy Bochonok (WIR-101399), Sverdlovchanka (WIR-101400), Sultan (WIR-101402), Talitsa (WIR-101404), Fleyta (WIR-101405), Chusovaya (WIR-103944). Plant material for nomenclatural standards was selected in the collection of the originator organization with the participation of the creators of these varieties. The herbarium sample of the nomenclature standard of each cultivar is represented mainly by two herbarium sheets containing parts of one plant collected during two periods: fruit and annual shoots ‒ in the fall 2019, flowers ‒ in the spring 2020. The herbarium label indicates: the herbarium number of the sample in the VIR Herbarium, the scientific name of the species, the name of the variety, the origin (the name of the organization in which the variety was created), the place of reproduction (where the plant was grown), the harvest dates, the names of collectors. Herbarium sheets are supplemented with photos of fruits and flowers. Nomenclatural standards are made in accordance with the recommendations of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), registered in the database "VIR Herbarium" and included in the type collection of Herbarium of cultivated plants of the world, their wild relatives and weeds (WIR). According to the same rules, herbarium samples of 3 elite pear forms (Limonadnaya, Sretenskaya, Tais) were made, registered and included into the Main Fund of the VIR Herbarium. After registration of copyright documents for cultivars, these samples can be assigned as nomenclatural standards. In total, 27 samples in the amount of 27 herbarium sheets were transferred to the herbarium collection. A digital image of herbarium specimen is available in the database «VIR Herbarium» (http://db.vir.nw.ru/herbar/gerb).

The flora of south-eastern Mato Grosso State (Brazil): a review of herbarium collections.

The diversity and richness of the Brazilian flora are documented in herbarium collections. When areas are deforested, but not documented, we lose both flora and the opportunity to know which species occupied those areas. The south-eastern mesoregion of Mato Grosso State, comprising 22 municipalities, has undergone the loss of native vegetation cover, accelerated by the substantial expansion of agribusiness. For an in-depth look at the consequences and the current state of the flora in that mesoregion, we consulted both speciesLink and JABOT databases. More specifically, we carried out a comprehensive study of herbarium collections by municipality and compiled data including scientific name, collection date, collection locality, collector name and observations made during collection. We obtained 5,861 records of angiosperms, ferns and lycophytes of 160 families, 770 genera and 1,792 species. The specimens are deposited in 80 herbaria of which the Herbarium of Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso (UFMT) hosts the largest collection. Rondonópolis was the most sampled municipality, whereas 50% of the municipalities were poorly sampled and one showed no collection records at all. Amongst the species occurring only in Mato Grosso, eleven were collected only in that mesoregion and twenty species were under some degree of threat. Our study recommends increasing collection and identification efforts to enable effective conservation actions and improve richness estimates for the State of Mato Grosso and the Cerrado, in general, before more of the flora is lost to deforestation.

NOMENCLATURAL NOTES ON TWO WESTERN TRICHOSTEMA

Two species of Trichostema L. (Ajugoideae, Lamiaceae) from western states need nomenclatural clarification. Trichostema simulatum Jeps. occurs throughout northern California and southern Oregon. It was published by Willis Linn Jepson in his 1925 flora of California citing the type collection as “Klamathon, Copeland 3534, Type”. This is a conflation of the collector's name and the specimen number of the exsiccata West American Plants, in which the type specimen was distributed by C. F. Baker in 1903. Furthermore, an herbarium name, “Trichostema laetum Greene,” appears on most T. simulatum type material. This designation was never published and is a nomen nudum. Trichostema austromontanum F.H.Lewis occurs throughout the mountain ranges of southern California and Baja California. Originally published with two subspecies by Harlan Lewis in 1945, the three taxa have since been determined to be invalidly published because Lewis did not provide a species description, only subspecies descriptions. Herein, we provide a clarification on the type specimens of T. simulatum Jeps. as well as a valid publication of the species name T. austromontanum.

Species Detection and Segmentation of Multi-specimen Historical Herbaria

Historically, herbarium specimens have provided users with documented occurrences of plants in specific locations over time. Herbarium collections have therefore been the basis of systematic botany for centuries (Younis et al. 2020). According to the latest summary report based on the data from Index Herbariorum, there are around 3400 active herbaria in the world containing 397 million specimens that are spread across 182 countries (Thiers 2021). Exponential growth in high quality image capturing devices induced by the enormous amount of uncovered collections has further led to rising interest in large scale digitization initiatives across the world (Le Bras et al. 2017). As herbarium specimens are increasingly becoming digitised and accessible in online repositories, an important need has also emerged to develop automated tools to process and enrich these collections to facilitate better access to the preserved archives. This rising number of digitised herbarium sheets provides an opportunity to employ computer-based image processing techniques, such as deep learning, to automatically identify species and higher taxa (Carranza-Rojas and Joly 2018, Carranza-Rojas et al. 2017, Younis et al. 2020) or to extract other useful information from the herbaria sheets, such as detecting handwritten text, color bars, scales and barcodes. The species identification task works well for herbarium sheets that have only one species in a page. However, there are many herbarium books that have multiple species on the same page (as shown in Fig. 1) for which the complexity of the identification problem increases tremendously. It also involves a great deal of time and effort if they are to be enriched manually. In this work, we propose a pipeline that can automatically detect, identify, and enrich plant species in multi-specimen herbaria. The core idea of the pipeline is to detect unique plant species and handwritten text around the plant species and map the text to the correct plant species. As shown in Fig. 2, the proposed pipeline begins with the pre-processing of the images. The images are rotated and aligned such that the longest edge is maintained as its height. In the case of herbarium books, the pages are detected and morphological transformations are performed to reduce occlusions (Thirukokaranam Chandrasekar and Verstockt 2020). A YOLOv3 (You Only Look Once version 3) object detection model (Zhao and Li 2020) is trained from scratch to detect plants and text. The model was trained on a dataset of single species herbarium sheets with a mosaic augmentation technique to extend the plants model to detect multiple species. The first results of the training shows impressive results although it could be further improved with more labelled data. We also plan to train an object segmentation model and contrast its performance with the plant detection model for multi-specimen herbarium sheets. After detecting both the plants and the text, the text will be recognized with a state-of-the-art handwritten text recognition (HTR) model. The recognized text can then be matched with a database of specimens, to identify each detected specimen. Furthermore, additional textual metadata (e.g. date, locality, collector's name, institution) visible on the sheet will be recognized and used to enrich the collection.

Joaquim José da Silva (c. 1755–1810): his life, natural history collecting activities, and involvement in the so-called first scientific expedition in the interior of Angola

Figueiredo, E. & G.F. Smith (2021). Joaquim José da Silva (c. 1755–1810): his life, natural history collecting activities, and involvement in the so-called first scientific expedition in the interior of Angola. Candollea 76: 125–138. In English, English abstract. The Portuguese naturalist Joaquim José da Silva (c. 1755–1810) was sent to Angola in the late 18th century to collect natural history specimens, as part of the “viagens philosophicas”, a series of expeditions funded by the Portuguese state to its overseas territories. Silva arrived in Angola in 1783 and remained in the country until his death 27 years later. An account of Silva's life and activities is provided. His travel itineraries in Angola are mapped and a list of his collections that could be located is presented. The little-known expedition to the Cunene River in which he participated is discussed. It was the first expedition to the interior of Angola during which plants were collected for deposition in a herbarium. His plant collections are recorded in the literature as numbering over 200 specimens that are held in the Herbarium of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris (P), after they were removed from Lisbon, Portugal, by Étienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1772–1844) during the Napoleonic War, in 1808. The Silva collections served as original material for describing at least 24 names. However, the Silva specimens at P lack collector's name and date and are difficult to trace. Only about 20% of these collections have been located in P. Received: January 15, 2021; Accepted: February 10, 2021; First published online: May 20, 2021

Тайны советского архива: бурятские шаманские материалы в книге Б. Ринчена

For the first time, the author presents results of her long-term work on comparative analysis of the archive materials included in the collection of shaman texts of the Buryats of Russia “Les materiaux pour L'etude du shamanisme Mongol.” The book was published by academician B. Rinchen in Wiesbaden in 1961. As shaman texts were published without accompanying records, the scientific research cries out for comparison of texts from B. Rinchen’s anthology with archival materials of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IOS RAS) and those of the Center of Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist, and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (COMX IMBTS SB RAS). Shaman materials are considered in the context of ethnocultural history of the Buryats. The author strives to reconstruct the archival data in order to identifying territorial and temporal context. The introduction of this unique material into scientific use seems significant. While working recurrently with shaman materials of the fond 62 of Ts. Zh. Zhamtsarano from the archive of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, a comparative analysis of archival materials and texts from the B. Rinchen’s book has been conducted. It has been identified that 19 songs from 56 texts contained in Rinchen’s book were copied from the fond 62 of Ts. Zhamtsarano. In the fond 753 of T. K. Alekseeva from the COMX IMBTS SB RAS 20 more texts have been found, that were included in the Rinchen’s book. The comparative analysis of shaman songs from the Alexeeva fond with Rinchen’s book reveals one major difference (minor variations notwithstanding): the description of rites clarify the text semantics. Repeated search and comparative analysis of materials has allowed the author to conclude that texts from the T. Alexeeva’s fond are not absent in the fond of Ts. Zhamtsarano from the archive of the IOS RAS. Thus, shaman materials published in B. Rinchen’s book can’t originate just from the C. Zhamtsarano fond, as has been formerly assumed. It is quite possible that the book mostly contains poetic songs from the fond of T. K. Alexeeva (90 of 134 pages). Thus textual comparative analysis of songs concludes that T. K. Alexeyva fond is of great scientific interest from ethnographic point of view. It is believed that future researchers may require its data for further research and publication of unique shaman materials with full supplementary records and names of collectors.

Sphagnum mosses of the Male Polissya (Lviv region)

The article summarizes current data about the condition and spread of Sphagnum mosses on the territory of Male Polissya in Lviv Region based on the material from our own field research, materials of National Herbarium of Ukraine (KW), the Herbarium National Museum of Natural History of the National Academy of Sci­ences of Ukraine (LWS) and literature data. An annotated list of the species of the genus Sphagnum was compiled and it includes 15 species together with an indication of place and date of collection, the names of collectors, the spread in Ukraine and biotopes in which the species may occur according to The National Habitat Catalogue of Ukraine and EUNIS. Sphagnum fallax (Klinggr.) Klinggr., S. fimbriatum Wils. and S. palustre L. were determined as the most widespread species of the genus Sphagnum in the research area. Two species S. angustifolium and S. inundatum are indicated for the first time for the territory of Lviv region. Six regionally rare species were found: S. capillifolium, S. cuspidаtum, S. fаllax, S. fimbriаtum, S. obtusum and S. papillosum. The possible disappearance of a species Sphagnum centrale, S. contortum, S. flexuosum and S. obtusum on the territory of the Volytsky Botanical Reserve of national importance was established owing to the draining of wetlands. Ecological groups of sphagnum species on the research area were analyzed, where the predominance of subheliophytes (7 species, 46.7 %), hygrophytes (13 species, 86.7 %), cold tolerant species (13 or 87.7 %) and acidophiles (8 species, 53.3 %) was identified. The topicality of the study is determined by the fact that sphagnum mosses are spread much less frequently than other species from the division of bryophytes because they are confined to a narrow range of biotopes. With the drastic changes in the hydrological regime of the environment, which occurred during the second half of the twentieth century, due to the large areas of drained land, the processes of biotope dehydration became irreversible and some species of sphagnum could have disappeared from the territory of Male Polissya. Due to the sensitivity of bryophytes, in particular species of the sphagnum genus, and due to a disturbance of the hydrological regime of wetlands, the waterlogged mixed coniferous forest in the vicinity of the village Kulychkiv is a promising territory for the creation of a new environmentally protected site or the extension of the Volytsky Botanical Reserve of national importance for the purpose of wetlands preservation here.

Dataset of occurrences and ecological traits of amphibians from Upper Paraguay River Basin, central South America

There are many gaps in our biodiversity knowledge, especially in highly diverse regions such as the Neotropics. Basic information on species occurrence and traits are scattered throughout different literature sources, which makes it difficult to access data and ultimately delays advances in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. We provide species occurrence and trait data for amphibian species in the Upper Paraguay River Basin, central South America. The compiled information is made available through two different datasets that hold (i) 17K species occurrence records and (ii) 30 species-level traits for 113 amphibian species. The first dataset includes the species occurrence records and informs specimen id, collection of housing, locality, geographical coordinates, geographic accuracy, collection date, and collector name. The second dataset covers species-level attributes on morphometry, diet, activity, habitat, and breeding strategy. These datasets improve accessibility to spatial and trait data for amphibian species in the Pantanal ecoregion, one of the largest wetlands on Earth.

Beetles of the family Cryptophagidae (Coleoptera) in the collection of Zoological Museum of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

The Cryptophagidae collection (Coleoptera: Cucujoidea) deposited at the Zoological Museum of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (ZMKU) is described. The main authors of the collection are well-known researchers from the 1910–1930s, Orest Marcu and Karl Penecke. This is the largest collection of cryptophagids among the natural museums of Ukraine containing 304 specimens belonging to 85 species of 13 genera. In addition, 15 specimens of 5 species belonging to the families Erotylidae, Biphyllidae and Languriidae were among Cryptophagidae specimens. The collection, according to information available in the ZMKU, came to the museum not earlier than 1947 as the indemnity for the results of the II World War, most likely from Chernivtsi, where Marcu and Penecke worked. The vast majority of specimens is collected in the territory of modern Romania and Ukraine, and many specimens came from Chernivtsi. A table with an overview of all key details of the specimens is given, in which there are 6 fields: the name of the species on the label, details on the species identification, number of specimens, collection locality with the name of collector and remarks on the specimen, in particular, the instructions for decoding collection sites from the original labels. Annotations are made on the amount of the collection and the most important specimens and re-identification for each of the 13 genera. Some specimens are lost, probably during numerous collection migrations. In particular, some species (Cryptophagus simplex, C. lapidicola, C. nitidulus, Caenoscelis subdeplanata, Atomaria grandicollis, A. peltata, etc.) are represented in the collection only by the labels. The collection is important for the analysis of the composition of the fauna of the Carpathian region in the broad sense, since some species are encountered in the collection rarely; therefore it is important to clarify their locations to form the most comprehensive list of species of the Cryptophagids in the region. Several species of the family were included on the actual list of the fauna of the region on the basis of the study of this collection, in particular: Atomaria linearis, A. analis, A. apicalis, A. gravidula, Cryptophagus fasciatus, C. setulosus, etc.

(2725) Proposal to conserve the name Polypodium rigidulum (Drynaria rigidula) against P. simplex (Polypodiaceae)

(2725) Polypodium rigidulum Sw. in J. Bot. (Schrader) 1800(2): 26. Oct–Dec 1801, nom. cons. prop. Typus: [Indonesia], Java, Thunberg (UPS No. 24565). (=) Polypodium simplex Burm. f., Fl. Indica: 235. 1 Mar–6 Apr 1768, nom. rej. prop. Lectotypus (vide Mazumdar & al. in Candollea 74: 104. 2019): Indonesia, Pryon (G-PREL barcode G00818253). Polypodium rigidulum Sw. (l.c.), currently called Drynaria rigidula (Sw.) Bedd. (Ferns Brit. India: 314. 1869), is the only species of Drynaria with pinnate fronds and is widely distributed in China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam; tropical Australia, and some Pacific islands (Polynesia) (Zhang & Gilbert in Wu & al., Fl. China 2–3: 766. 2013). The rhizome of Drynaria rigidula has been used in traditional medicine in Indonesia as an anti-infective agent (Nugraha & al. in Nat. Prod. Commun. 8: 703. 2013). In the protologue of Polypodium rigidulum, Swartz (l.c.) did not mention any collector's name or locality. However, Roos (in Verh. Kon. Ned. Akad. Wetensch., Afd. Natuurk., Sect. 2, 85: 234. 1986) cited the type as follows: “Type: Thunberg, Java (holo: S; iso: UPS, n.v.)”. Hovenkamp & Roos (in Fl. Malesiana, ser. 2, Ferns Fern Allies 3: 42. 1998) repeated Roos's (l.c.) citation of the S specimen: “Type: Thunberg (S), Java”, omitting the UPS specimen, which they had apparently not seen. A specimen in S (S-P-11482: http://herbarium.nrm.se/img/fbo/large/S-P-011001/S-P-11482.jpg), annotated only Drynaria rigidula by Roos in 1985, bears the red herbarium label “Isotypus”, but the original label has “Polypodium diversifolium Brown, non Willd., prodr. 147. East coast of New Holland, within the tropics. 1802. R. Brown scripsit et misit. Herb. Swartz”. Because it has no association with Thunberg or Java and was collected after P. rigidulum was published, it cannot be the cited “holo[type]”, and is presumably the isotype indicated by Roos (l.c: 235) for P. diversifolium in his synonymy under D. rigidula. Whether a holotype under ICN Art. 9.1 (Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018) or a lectotype under Art. 9.10, the type of P. rigidulum in S cited by Roos (l.c.) appears to be missing, as despite the assistance of curatorial staff, Lindsay & al. (in Gard. Bull. Singapore 69: 153. 2017) were unable to locate it. They therefore designated a UPS specimen (Cat. No. 24565) as lectotype. Lindsay & al.'s (l.c.) lectotypification is acceptable under Art. 9.11. Drynaria rigidula (basket fern) is a popular garden plant (Hoshizaki & Moran in Fern Grower's Manual: 295. 2001; Wiersema & León in World Econ. Pl., ed. 2: 257. 2013), and this name has been well known for a long time as evident by many citations in the literature (for example, Beddome, l.c. 1869, Suppl. Ferns S. Ind.: 24. 1876, Handb. Ferns Brit. India: 344. 1883; Copeland, Polypod. Phil. Isl.: 135. 1905, Gen. Fil.: 204. 1947, Fern Fl. Philipp.: 497. 1960; Alderwerelt, Malayan Ferns: 699. 1909, Malayan Ferns Fern Allies: 415. 1917; Backer & Posthumus, Varenfl. Java: 233. 1939; Tardieu & Christensen in Lecomte, Fl. Indo-Chine 7(2): 421. 1941; Holttum, Revis. Fl. Malaya 2: 183. 1954, in Dansk Bot. Ark. 20: 20. 1961, 23: 231. 1965; Tagawa in J. Jap. Bot. 38: 330. 1963; Roos, l.c.; Tagawa & Iwatsuki in Fl. Thailand 3: 550. 1989; Hovenkamp & Roos, l.c.; Bostock & Spokes in Fl. Australia 48: 475. 1998; Boonkerd & Pollawatn, Pterid. Thailand: 250, 270. 2000; Newman & al., Checkl. Vasc. Pl. Lao PDR: 30. 2007; Zhang & Gilbert, l.c.; Mazumdar & al. in Candollea 74: 104. 2019). However, Mazumdar & al. (l.c.: 104, fig. 7) recently found that the type specimen of Polypodium simplex Burm. f. (Fl. Indica: 235. 1768) at G-PREL (barcode G00818253) is actually Drynaria rigidula. Due to the priority of N.L. Burman's name, a combination in Drynaria based on P. simplex should replace D. rigidula, but that would be disruptive and disadvantageous to the nomenclature of this widely distributed and well-known species. So I propose here to conserve the name P. rigidulum against P. simplex to maintain nomenclatural stability of the former. JM, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6127-2737 I sincerely thank Dr. J. Wiersema (US) and Prof. J. McNeill (E) for editing and improving the proposal.

Alexandr Sergeyevich Lisetskiy and his collection of bats in the Museum of Nature at V.N.Karazin Kharkiv National University

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Lysetskiy (1919–1991), whose centenary is celebrated this year, was a well-known ornithologist and mammologist and worked for a long time as an associate professor at the Department of Zoology at Kharkiv University. He has been interested in zoology since childhood and has been a young naturalist at the Kharkov Pioneer Palace and in Kharkiv Zoo as early as 1934. A.Lysetskiy started his studies at the biological faculty of KhNU in 1938 and finished it after the Great Patriotic War in 1948. Already in these years (from 1937 to 1947) he, together with his student friend A.Kunichenko, collected bat specimens, which are now stored in the Museum of Nature of KhNU. Since the labels of almost all specimens do not have the names of collectors, this collection was determined by us by comparing all the data (collection numbers, dates etc.) of the samples with the data given in their paper "To the bat fauna (Chiroptera) of Kharkiv region», which was published in 1952. In total, the Museum of Nature collection now has 139 specimens of bats from 18 species, 11 genera and 3 families. The majority – 129 specimens belong to the family Vespertilionidae. Of these, 52 specimens were collected by A.Lisetskiy (together with A.Kunichenko). This material is provided in the comparative table. Of the 9 species of this family represented in their collection, 6 species are representing fifty or more percent of the total number of all specimens stored in the Museum of Nature. These species are: Myotis dasycneme (66.6%), Plecotus auritus (75%), Nyctalus lasiopterus (100%), Nyctalus leisleri (55%), Pipistrellus nathusii (83.3%), Vespertilio murinus (100%). Only these collectors provided specimens of two species: these are the only specimen of Nyctalus lasiopterus and both specimens of Vespertilio murinus. Nowadays, all of these specimens (except Nyctalus lasiopterus, which is on display) are stored in separate boxes in the scientific collection of the museum. We can conclude that the collection of A.Lisetskiy and A.Kunichenko make up the prevailing part of the scientific collection of bats of the Museum of Nature of Kharkiv University.

Bryophytes of Ghana

There is currently limited information on plant biodiversity from Ghana. Most of the information openly available has been published by the Ghana Herbarium at the Department of Plant and Environmental Biology, University of Ghana. The Ghana Herbarium has over 100,000 specimens from Ghana and other West African countries. Of these approximately 85% of the specimen labels have been digitized. The database contains information including species names, taxonomic family, barcode number, name of collector(s), locality data, date of collection, description of species and uses of the plants. Data were captured using Botanical Research and Herbarium Management Software (BRAHMS) software and is openly available on Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (http://www.gbif.org/country/GH/publishing). Less than 1% of the herbarium collection contains bryophyte information of Ghana. Even though bryophytes are an often overlooked flora, Ghana has a high diversity of bryophytes. Indeed Ghana has an enormous biomass of bryophytes, particularly in the humid forest areas, that is bound to contribute significantly to the water-retentive capacity of the Ghanaian forest, absorbing water quickly and releasing it slowly. It is clear that the bryophytes are an important part of the ecosystem generally, helping to stabilize the hillsides and acting as a source of water. As very little is known about Ghana's bryophyte flora, a short expedition was undertaken in the Atewa Forest in 2014. A total of 164 species were added to the herbarium collection, including about 58 new to Ghana and at least one new species (Cololejeunea sp. yet to be described). The Ghana Herbarium recognises the growing need for digitization across its collections. Data from bryophytes specimens in the Ghana Herbarium and other Ghanaian herbaria as well as other data types on Ghanaian bryophytes will need to be captured using appropriate workflows, technologies and comply with Darwin Core standards. There is also paucity of observational and bryophyte abundance data. This presentation will review the current status of biodiversity information on bryophytes from Ghana and biodiversity informatics activities at Ghana Herbarium. It will also explore ways forward for digitization which incudes capturing the information on the already existing bryophyte specimens in the Ghana Herbarium and the newly added collections using BRAHMS software.

Scientific user requirements for a herbarium data portal.

The digitization of herbaria and their online access will greatly facilitate access to plant collections around the world. This will improve the efficiency of taxonomy and help reduce inequalities between scientists. The Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium, is currently digitizing 1.2 million specimens including label data. In this paper we describe the user requirements analysis conducted for a new herbarium web portal. The aim was to identify the required functionality, but also to assist in the prioritization of software development and data acquisition. The Garden conducted the analysis in cooperation with Clockwork, the digital engagement agency of Ordina. Using a series of interactive interviews, potential users were consulted from universities, research institutions, science-policy initiatives and the Botanic Garden Meise. Although digital herbarium data have many potential stakeholders, we focused on the needs of taxonomists, ecologists and historians, who are currently the primary users of the Meise herbarium data portal. The three categories of user have similar needs, all wanted as much specimen data as possible, and for those data, to be interlinked with other digital resources within and outside the Garden. Many users wanted an interactive system that they could comment on, or correct online, particularly if such corrections and annotations could be used to rank the reliability of data. Many requirements depend on the quality of the digitized data associated with each specimen. The essential data fields are the taxonomic name; geographic location; country; collection date; collector name and collection number. Also all researchers valued linkage between biodiversity literature and specimens. Nevertheless, to verify digitized data the researchers still want access to high quality images, even if fully transcribed label information is provided. The only major point of disagreement is the level of access users should have and what they should be allowed to do with the data and images. Not all of the user requirements are feasible given the current technical and regulatory landscape, however, the potential of these suggestions is discussed. Currently, there is no off-the-shelf solution to satisfy all these user requirements, but the intention of this paper is to guide other herbaria who are prioritising their investment in digitization and online web functionality.

Identification and Oviposition Response of Sitophilus oryzae (L.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Dryophthorinae) on Various Food Grains

In this study weevils were collected from the local areas of Tandojam and its surroundings. While further identification was performed at the Laboratory of postgraduate student, | department of Entomology, Faculty of Crop Protection, Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam. The collected weevils from the local areas of Tandojam, were killed in a jar by applying potassium cyanide and were mounted through entomological pins on their right elytron. The specimens were also labeled, which contains information about the date of collection, name of collector, host of plant if was known. After that abdomen were separated and put at 10% potassium hydroxide for overnight at room temperature separately and were heavily sclerotized. The specimens were also heated for 10 minutes. In the next day these specimen were rushed in water for 5 minutes. During this experiment habitus images were taken with the help of camera fitted in microscope. The examination of gentile and other remaining parts were performed under the microscope for capturing of necessary images. For habitus images model of camera canon Power shot (sx510 HS) were utilized and for the gentile organ images USB camera fitted microscope 350k pixel (1) Kyowa Medilux (2) Labomed CSM2 20 to 40x were used. For the oviposition response on various grains, tested grains include; wheat, barley, oat, maize, gram, millet. A pair of newly emerged Sitophilus oryzae (Fabricius, 1775) from a laboratory colony was placed in plastic jars of 150 ml. There were 6 treatments, each treatment with 3 replications. Eggs were counted in each jar containing pair of weevils. Analysis was carried out through statistical software SXW 8.0, to categorize the preference of Sitophilus oryzae.

Catálogo de los especímenes tipo de crinoideos (Echinodermata: Crinoidea) del archipiélago cubano

Se ofrece un listado de los 13 especímenes tipo de crinoideos cubanos (Clase Crinoidea) con sus datos taxonómicos, extraídos de las bases de datos de las instituciones que los atesoran. Los resultados han sido ordenados en forma de catálogo, con la sistemática más actualizada de las especies, la institución donde se encuentra depositado el ejemplar y su respectivo número catalográfico, la localidad tipo y la referencia bibliográfica. Para algunas especies se incluye además la fecha de colecta, la expedición donde se colectaron los ejemplares, la profundidad de colecta y en ocasiones el nombre del colector. La información ofrecida hasta el presente se encontraba dispersa por lo que esta recopilación constituye un aporte valioso y práctico para futuras consultas y estudios taxonómicos.

Catálogo ilustrado de los especímenes tipo de tiburones cubanos

Se recopila información de diferentes bases de datos para presentar los especímenes tipo de 19 especies de tiburones cubanos (Clase CHONDRICHTHYES), con ilustraciones y datos asociados. Siete de las especies fueron descritas por Don Felipe Poey y Aloy, conocido naturalista cubano del siglo XIX. Los resultados se han ordenado a modo de catálogo ilustrado, con la sistemática actualizada, la institución que las atesora y su número catalográfico, la localidad tipo, la referencia y el título del trabajo correspondiente. Para algunas especies se ofrece la fecha de colecta, así como la profundidad y la expedición en que se colectaron los ejemplares; en ocasiones también aparece el colector. La información ofrecida ha estado dispersa hasta el momento, por lo que esta publicación constituye una recopilación de mucho valor y utilidad.