Completion of Sonoran Desert and ASU Lichen Databases

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The use of databases in herbarium management has become a vital tool in the organization and analysis of large collections. First the proposal focuses on completing a database for the ASU lichen herbarium comprising c. 105,000 records, of which approximately half are currently databased. A large fraction of these ASU collections (c. 30,000) are relevant to the greater Sonoran Desert Lichen Flora Project, which involves over 60 collaborators from 15 countries. Most of these collaborators have participated on one or more of the 16 major field expeditions conducted over the past 12 years and have accumulated an additional c. 70,000 collections. A second major objective is to database these records and add them to the 30,000 subset from the first database thereby creating a second database specific to the Sonoran Desert Lichen Flora of c. 100,000 records. In addition to being able to access these two databases through the lichenological community (as is currently available through our homepage http://mgd.nacse.org/Arizona - and its links), the databases will be accessible to a much larger community (LTER and ASU scientists, K-12 educational community, resource managers and conservationists) through an ongoing ASU database project entitled "Networking our Research Legacy" and administered by the ASU Center for Environmental Studies. Once constructed the databases will be maintained as part o the long-term database activities at the ASU LTER site.