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关键和数字图像指南。 亚马逊河流域维管植物的多样性非常高，可能超过80，000种。 由于这种多样性，识别花粉可能非常困难。 该钥匙将从一个全面收集的高分辨率数字图像中开发出来，这些图像取自有凭证的植物标本馆材料，将大大有助于花粉的鉴定。 拟议的图像集将包含20，000张CA图像。三千种。 虽然这似乎是亚马逊河流域80 000种物种中的一小部分，但这一事实反映了我们的知识水平以及试图记录热带雨林生物多样性的分类学家所面临的任务的艰巨性。 该项目将是促进确定生物多样性的一个重要组成部分的重要一步。 开发的数据库将延长花粉参考收藏的有用性，并通过提供数字格式（万维网和光盘）的检索表和图像，扩大现代花粉参考收藏的使用范围。这将代表亚马逊盆地第一个基于植物标本馆的花粉植物群，比最大的已出版化石花粉指南中的分类群多一个数量级。 形态学数据和数字图像将存储在关系（FileMaker Pro 5）中，并将编写宏以允许将数据库用作多路访问密钥。 将利用计算机的图形能力，提供一个可视化的，而不是基于文本的，花粉类型的关键。 该键和图像对于孢粉学教学以及亚马逊地区当前和更新世植物群的研究将很有用。

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.