Virtual herbarium of unique plants of the Caucasus will be created at ElarSkan

2023: Building a digital plant collection

In the North Caucasus, scientists of the Institute of Ecology of Mountain Territories named after A.K. Tembotov RAS creates a digital collection of plants of the Central Caucasus. For digitization, the domestic planetary scanner ElarScan A2-400 will be used . Elar announced this on January 17, 2024.

The implemented project of the virtual herbarium can be compared with an inventory of the flora of the region, "said Zalim Mirovich Khanov, Project Manager, Candidate of Biological Sciences, Acting Head of the Geobotanical Research Laboratory of the IEGT RAS. - The scientific significance of the successful implementation of this project lies in the creation of an array of data on plants of the North Caucasus (including the bryological and lichenological collections).

source = Elar

The availability of information on the resources of plant diversity is a strategic task for the Caucasian macro-region and Russia as a whole. An important point is the cross-verifiability and public accessibility of information.

The transfer of herbariums to digital format makes it possible to work remotely with herbarium samples, which is important both for the preservation of the collection and for increasing the efficiency of managing them through quick access, which significantly facilitates the work of the researcher, - said Zalim Mirovich Khanov.

The domestic planetary scanner ElarScan A2-400 makes it possible to safely and high-quality digitization of valuable samples

ElarScan A2-400 was chosen primarily as a scanner that provides high quality electronic images when detailing images. An important plus was the convenience of using the scanner, as well as the fact that the device is a domestic development, - said the project manager. - Experience with the scanner makes it possible to argue that the scanner is optimal for working with biological samples.

As of January 2024, plants of various taxonomic groups from the collection of the IEGT RAS, as well as herbarium materials of the Caucasian expeditions N.A. and E.A. Bush in 20-40 g. last century, preserved in the fund of the National Museum of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and KBSU. These digital materials have great scientific and historical value and are of interest to specialists in the field of botany and local history.

Among the digitized samples, two species were identified, first described for the science of N.A. and E.A. Bush in the Central Caucasus - Paper lisae N. Busch and Ranunculus balkharicus N. Busch.

Research on the development of the digital collection of the Digital Herbarium of the IEGT RAS is carried out within the framework of project No. 23-24-10075 "Creation and development of the Center for Collective Use" Herbarium of the Central Caucasus "with the support of the Russian Scientific Foundation and the Government of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic.