A Computerized Guide to Amazonian Pollen

该项目将为亚马孙花粉制作首个基于计算机的检索和数字图像指南。亚马逊地区维管植物的多样性高得令人难以置信，可能超过8万种。由于这种多样性，鉴定花粉可能非常困难。这把钥匙将从从有担保的植物标本中拍摄的高分辨率数字图像的全面收集中开发出来，将极大地促进花粉的识别。拟议的图像集合将包含约3000个物种的2万张图像。尽管这似乎只是亚马逊地区现有的8万种物种中的一小部分，但这一事实反映了我们的知识状况，以及试图记录热带雨林生物多样性的分类学家所面临的艰巨任务。该项目将是朝着促进识别生物多样性的大部分迈出的重要一步。开发的数据库将扩大花粉参考资料的用途，并通过提供数字格式的检索表和图像(WWW和CD-ROM)扩大获取现代花粉参考资料的途径。这将是亚马逊盆地第一个以植物标本馆为基础的花粉植物群，比已出版的最大化石花粉指南中的分类群多一个数量级。形态数据和数字图像将存储在关系型(FileMaker Pro 5)中，并将编写宏，以允许将数据库用作多路访问键。将利用计算机的图形能力为花粉类型提供可视的、而不是基于文本的检索表。这些检索表和图像将对孢粉学教学和亚马逊地区当代和更新世植物群的研究很有帮助。

This project will create the first computer-based key and digital image guide for Amazonian pollen. The diversity of vascular plants in Amazonia is incredibly high and may exceed 80,000 species. Because of this diversity, identifying pollen can be extremely difficult. The key, which will be developed from a comprehensive collection of high-resolution digital images taken from vouchered herbarium materials, will greatly facilitate the identification of pollen. The proposed collection of images will contain 20,000 images of ca. 3,000 species. Although this appears to be a small portion of the 80,000 species present in Amazonia, that fact reflects the state of our knowledge and the enormity of the task facing taxonomists who are trying to document the biodiversity of tropical rainforests. This project will be an important step toward facilitating identification of a large component of the biodiversity. The database developed will prolong the usefulness of pollen reference collections and broaden access to modern pollen reference collections by providing keys and images in digital format (WWW and CD-ROM). This will represent the first herbarium-based pollen flora for the Amazon basin, and an order of magnitude more taxa than in the largest of the published fossil-pollen guides. Morphological data and digital images will be stored in a relational (FileMaker Pro 5), and macros will be written to allow use of the database as a multiple access key. Advantage will be taken of the graphics capability of computers to provide a visual, rather than text-based, key to pollen types. The key and images will be useful for teaching palynology and for research on current and Pleistocene floras of Amazonia.