A Computerized Guide to Amazonian Pollen

该项目将为亚马逊花粉创建第一个基于计算机的密钥和数字图像指南。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，鉴定花粉是非常困难的。该钥匙将从植物标本馆材料中采集的高分辨率数字图像的综合收集中开发出来，将极大地促进花粉的识别。拟议的图像集将包含约3,000个物种的20,000张图像。尽管这似乎只是亚马逊地区8万种物种中的一小部分，但这一事实反映了我们的知识水平，也反映了试图记录热带雨林生物多样性的分类学家面临的艰巨任务。该项目将是促进识别生物多样性的重要一步。该数据库将通过提供数字格式（WWW和CD-ROM）的钥匙和图像，延长花粉参考资料收集的有用性，并拓宽获取现代花粉参考资料收集的途径。这将是亚马逊盆地第一个以植物标本为基础的花粉区系，比已出版的最大的化石花粉指南中的分类群要多一个数量级。形态学数据和数字图像将存储在关系数据库（FileMaker Pro 5）中，并编写宏以允许将数据库用作多访问键。将利用计算机的图形能力提供花粉类型的可视化而不是基于文本的关键。这些关键字和图像将有助于孢粉学的教学以及亚马逊河流域现今和更新世植物区系的研究。

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.