Alun SaltMore tweets from the International Botanical Congress.
The busy session in the afternoon was Creating next generation Floras.
| “ | #ibc18. Aaron Wilton. Is there a dynamic future ahead for Floras? Starting by outling history of traditional Floras | |||
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| “ | Wilton & eFloras: Long delay in flora production, early vols often in need of revision #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Aaron Wilton. Modern Floras – moving on to on-line access, XML, semantic markup, web2.0, atomized data. #buzzwords | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Aaron Wilton describing atomized Flora data enabling rich content treatments taylored to particular audiences. | |||
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| “ | James Macklin isn’t here but his voice is. We watch in interest to see if slides match voice. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | And now James Macklin appears via audio in eFlora session. I’ll never travel again. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Voice of James Macklin talking about Floras in the 21st century based on the Flora of North America. | |||
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Photo by chrisfreeland2002 on flickr
| “ | #ibc18 James Macklin – Flora of North America #fna due for completion by 2014. Dynamic project. Biggest challenges are social. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. James Macklin plugging the ‘Filtered Push’, a botanical annnotations network. Gets messages/content back to owners of resource. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. James Macklin plugging fine-grained semantic markup of text, extracting atomized descriptive elements. #datamining #complexquestions | |||
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| “ | Macklin: "No more books are necessary…sexy mobile app" #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Enforced radio silence w/ iPad tantrum. My phrase of day so far "atomic floras". Also a 1st, audio presentation w/o speaker present. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Thomas Janssen: Flore d’Afrique Centrale in the context of the European electronic floras initiative. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Thomas Janssen – describing tools and workflows for an electronic Flora Project. Uses Xper2 for interactive identification. | |||
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| “ | eFlora session not (yet) addressing: majority of manuscripts authored (in my experience) by ppl who don’t want to click buttons #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Thomas Janssen describing compilation & editing tools for distributed & remote collabortion with multiple researchers/participants. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Mary Barkworth: online interactive pathway (directed) keys as a tool for students today and tomorrow. | |||
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| “ | Barkworth: "from archaic, what I learned in graduate school, to just old" #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Barkworth: outlining plethora of Floras covering one particular region. All with diff. taxonomic concepts. Confusing for students. | |||
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| “ | Barkworth: Jones’ Visual keys produced by Geek-squared ability, Botany geek & IT geek #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Barkworth: students happy to use directed keys online, even if they are eactly the same choices as are on paper version. | |||
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| “ | Kevin Thiele says serifs are there because of Roman stone cutters and therefore… #sanserif? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Kevin Thiele: life in a highly connected world – the eFlora of anywhere and the eFlora of everywhere. | |||
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| “ | Kevin Thiele filling the room to discuss floras in a highly connected world… And likening the hyperlink to a page-turning fairy. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Thiele: Not criticising, but e-publication in new Code still pdf, a graphical representation that could be off a press. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Thiele: Next generation? Move from Flora of Anywhere to Flora of Everywhere – ie move from view that Flora has to be of somewhere #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Kevin Thiele. Describing PDFs, an e-rendition like printed page, the Flora of Australia On-Line, a database like the printed page. | |||
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| “ | Thiele looks forward to day when no one says anything twice. Me too, but not just Floras… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | RT @TimEntwisle Thiele looks forward to day when no one says anything twice. Me too, but not just Floras… #ibc18 <-You can say that again! | |||
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| “ | #ibc18 Kevin Thiele, Next Generation Floras http://t.co/KytJATy | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Kevin Thiele plugging IdentifyLife, http://www.identifylife.org – a possible repository for flora knowledge elements. | |||
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| “ | Thiele: Push information to most global location and then pull it into local products. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Fame at last: Australian Plant Census mentioned by Kevin Thiele. Come and see paper poster 1046. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. eFloras discussion, shoutout for the Australian Plant Census #apc, based on the Australian Plant Name Index #apni | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. eFloras discussion. A plea for plurality of views in ‘accepted’ taxonomies. #apc held up as a model. | |||
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| “ | eFlora: Q from crowd: Should we try to put data in form for long-term storage? < Maybe Thiele’s serif-friendly stone cutters? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. eFloras discussion. Plea for secure archival storage of data. What will happen when funding fails, other disasters? | |||
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| “ | eFloras discussion: Thiele make sage comment that if things are so bad that we lose all the e-backups we may have bigger problems? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | @TimEntwisle It was glib and wrong. If we loose our collective botanical knowledge, we are stuffed! #itmustbesecured #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. eFloras discussion. @SandyKnapp invoking Alexandria, Aaron Wilton invoking Christchurch, as ex. of #shithappens. #archivalstorage | |||
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| “ | Now in Environmental Adaptation Symp: Jasmin Joshi on relict cold-adapted species, and whether better adapted to climate Change. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Joshi: gathered together species from various populations in N Europe, then grew in controlled experiments to test response to temp+ #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Joshi: After 3 months Sphagnum favoured higher temp on own but not if grown with other species. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Joshi: Carex the same… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Joshi: Some (eg Drosera) northern populations benefited from growing in mixed species beds but not so much those from the south. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Joschi: What does it all mean? Lots of intriguing signals but early days in experiment. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Next: "Do large flowers have to be short-lived in stressful situations?" I would think in most situations – cost/benefit & all that. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Actually why do I say that? Amorphophallus titanum and Rafflesia in mind. But all that energy and effort, they should last longer… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Texido: High temps increase flower costs, more in large flrs. Big good for pollinator attraction but at cost so short-lived. #ibc18 | |||
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Later the focus moved on to the Plant List, which has also been noticed outside of plant science circles.
| “ | #ibc18. The Plant List. http://www.theplantlist.org – Steve Hooper introducing. Shoutout for #gspc (again!) | |||
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| “ | Nothing like starting with a big claim. Steve Hopper: "Plant names save lives". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Steve Hopper: Running through the theory and practice of assembling the Plant List, a ‘working list’. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. The Plant List will be seeking national level input. #apni/#apc? Quoting visits/hits/#metrics. | |||
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| “ | Hopper: World Flora by 2020 achievable and will mobilise priorities – geographic and electronic… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hopper: Kew recognises # web hits as a Key Performance Indicator #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Chuck Miller explaining how they made The Plant List at #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Steve Hopper. Shoutout for the ‘#gspc Toolkit’. http://www.bgci.org/plants2020/ | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Chuck Miller on the heuristics of making The Plant List. … Rools-based taxonomy. Wird. | |||
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| “ | Miller: WWBD? What Would a Botanist Do in compiling The Plant List? Good laugh from crowd #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | .@chrisfreeland At #apc we rarely/never ask WWBD. We look at what a botanist did/does, and write it down. #dontmakestuffup #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18 Chuck Miller. presenting dataflow for The Plant List. Iterative process. 30+ roolz for name acceptance and synonymy. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Chuck Miller outlining the ‘compromise’ procees in compiling The Plant List. c. 22% of names unresolved. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Eimear Nic Lughadha (and Bob Alkin): the significance of completing #gspc Target 1, user impacts. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18 Eimear Nic Lughadha presenting comprehensive statistics of The Plant List visits and use. | |||
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| “ | Q from Fabian Michelangeli: why hundreds of synonyms in TROPICOS are not in The Plant List. After Chuck MIller’s explanation at #ibc18. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Christian Flann: The African Plant Database Project. A coalition of four prior projects. | |||
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| “ | Nope, Cyrille Chatelain. Boring facts 😉 MT @Jim_Croft: #ibc18. Christian Flann: The African Plant Database Project…. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Cyrille Chatelain (apologies for earlier mistweet) outlining links between the African Plant Database and numerous other projects. | |||
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| “ | Next is Christina Flann (fellow systematics lab alumni) with the Global Compositae Checklist. Go Christina! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Christina Flann (really this time) on the Global Compositae Checklist. Represents c. 10% of the world’s flora. | |||
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| “ | Christina Flann: SQL v. ICBN – Lesson learned: build relationships between IT & botanists #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Christina Flann: Relationship between taxonomist and biodiversity informatician essential; sharing possible, but not easy #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Christina Flann. Global Compositae Checklist draws on #ipni and many other datasets. Issues of standards and compatability. | |||
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| “ | Have always been impressed with Christina Flann’s ability to clearly articulate complex ideas. Today is no different! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Christina Flann. Outlining Global Compositae Checklist compilation and resolution issues. Exact parallels to #apni/#apc | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Christina Flann’s work on Global Compositae Checklist coming to a funding close. What is going to happen now? #whydowealwaysdothis?! | |||
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| “ | #ibc18, Matt Von Konrat: the contribution of hornworts and liverworts to The Plant List. | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Matt Von Konrat: c. 9.5k accepted names of liverworts and hornworts. Preparing ‘synthesis papers’ summarizing each group. | |||
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| “ | Matt von Konrat at #ibc18 : 5000 downloads on check list of liverworts and hornworts for Java. !?!?! | |||
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| “ | #ibc18. Matt Von Konrat: producing regional liverwort and horwort checklist papers based on global ckecklist. Can map regional activitry. | |||
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| “ | geeks after the computer language… or coffee? 😉 MT @EveEmshwiller: Matt von Konrat at #ibc18 : 5k downloads on check list for Java!? | |||
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| “ | Von Konrat thanks crowd for staying through to end of day. Well, of course – who doesn’t love hepatics?! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Classic Magillian end to audience questions from The Plant List symposium 🙂 #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | @chrisfreeland Any discussion of data licensing for The Plant List? #ibc18 | |||
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While @fembotanist started in the in Historical botanical collections.
| “ | SYM005 Historical Botanical Collections chaired by Heimo Reiner. First is Odile Poncy with an update on renovation of Paris Herbarium #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Paris Herb. storage capacity increased for 10 million or more current specimens and future additional collections over next 30 years #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | 10% of unmounted specimens at Paris = 1,000,000 sheets! I thought MELU had a huge backlog! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Scanning high resolution image of 12,000 sheets per day at Paris Herbarium. Amazing! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Expected completion of Paris Herbarium renovation is 2012 #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Next is the collections of George B. Hinton, explorer in Mexico. Made collections 1931-1941. Talk by Maria De Lourdes Rico Arce #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hinton collected over 17,000 specimens covering 68,000 square kms of Mexico #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Total number of species in Hinton collection 2706 with 206 infraspecies #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | L.Rico Arce: Story of Hinton’s herbarium being moved across the mountains on 41 mules. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | One of Hinton’s mules, Lenina, immortalised in the name Salvia leninae. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Oh dear, next talk is on F.Stephani, the "enthusiastic describer" of hepatics. Even I’ve heard of him… #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Michelle J. Price speaking about the historically significant liverwort collection of Franz Stephani #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Stephani a business man in textile industry who took a keen interest in Liverworts. Well, who wouldn’t be interested in them? 🙂 #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Michelle Price: Stephani allergic to synonymy? Same material described several times under many different names. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Michelle Price: Wooden building, wooden cabinet = not an ideal place to store a valuable plant collection! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Michelle Price: healing the Stephani "trauma" w/ type specimen digitisation. And there’s a word you don’t hear every day: "compacti". #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Krishna Shrestha: appeal for repatriation of Nepalese specimens. Pilgrims asked to collect plants, botany as spiritual experience. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Tens of thousands of Nepalese specimens in Eur. herbaria hampering research by local botanists. Sure some Aussies can relate. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Maura Flannery: herbarium as time capsule. Herb. in Providence, Rhode Is. with no types, no loans etc. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Maura Flannery: historian "fired up about herbaria". Discussion on possible uses of dormant collns like these. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Paul Mwebaze: economist investigating monetary value of biological collections. This session running a little late. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Mwebaze: investigating economic effects of policy change on collections. Collections difficult to value & tend to be undervalued. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Mwebaze: surveyed users re: whether they would pay user fee to access central collns database. Most said $200-300 pa. #cheapskates #ibc18 | |||
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Pat Heslop-Harrison started in The evolution and development of the angiosperm female gametophyte.
| “ | Alles ist blatt! but what about the angiosperm female gametophyte? BGL Swamy’s 1975 drawing helps students remember structure! #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Ned Friedman starts quoting Wolff1759 Construction of a plant is reiteration of similar parts then Goethe’s plant of modified leaves #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Now the non-memorable charts of female gametophyte types – but I can’t find the memorable Swamy drawing on the web. Must ask Ned F. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | But colouring the chart shows evolutionary patterns and reiteration of modules with different timings of development, in gametophyte. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | David Haig – consequences of crossing over and chance of locus transmission in one of the 4 products of meiosis in megaspore tetrad. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Mike Fay (yes I’m in orchid room): Orchis species morphology variable "but you don’t see hybrids unless you are looking at them". #ibc18 | |||
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We can also catch the end of another session: Evolution in orchids — at the interface of populations and species
| “ | Orchis – hybridisation widespread. Conservation of process may be as important as conservation of named taxa. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Fay: What do we do when no morphological characters follow splits indicated by genetics? #ibc18 Answer at moment: worry? | |||
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| “ | Mark Chase: There is some heritable variation that comes from the environment. Lamarck mentioned lightly. #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Mark Chase: Epigenetics for real plants now: the case of Dactylorhiza orchids #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Chase: Species specific & geographic structure in cDNA-AFLP profiles; habitat preference shaping expression patterns – epigenetic? #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Epigenetic changes are lost as allotetraploid is older #ibc18 Seeing heritable condition of epialleles lets understand ecology of sp | |||
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| “ | How does loss with age fit with dx.doi.org/10.1534/genetics.111.128744 showing huge phenocopy epigenetic variation can be released? #ibc18 | |||
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Here’s an active link for that paper: Genome-wide Epigenetic Perturbation Jump-starts Patterns of Heritable Variation Found in Nature
| “ | Chase: Because of influence of environment on them these variants of Dactylorhiza can’t be protected ex situ: ie for allotetraploids #ibc18 | |||
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| “ | Hi IBC Twitterers: fancy anon-virtual meeting? Would Thursday 8pm after Peter Bernhardt’s talk be ok? AoBBlog.com has a small budget. #ibc18 | |||
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And again, there are update problems, so I’ll compile the tweets for the public lecture into one last post. The tweeting is going well though.
| “ | Can officially declare IBC2011 a success– I’ve started getting twitspam. #ibc18 | |||
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