Abstract Detail

Systematics Section / ASPT

Brasher, Jeffrey W. [1], Snow, Neil [1].

An update on the Lucid-based Southern Rocky Mountain Interactive Flora (SRMIF) Project.

Interactive keys are a rapidly improving and expanding bioinformatics technology that facilitates and expedites most aspects of descriptive systematics. The Southern Rocky Mountain Interactive Flora (SRMIF), currently in progress, is an on-line interactive key of the vascular plant flora of the Southern Rocky Mountain Region (SRMR). The completion goal is 2005. The SRMIF is an outgrowth of the "Colorado Interactive Flora", but was expanded and renamed. The SRMR includes Colorado, most of southern Wyoming, and northcentral New Mexico. Recent progress has focused on the development of 1) information infrastructure, especially the "Provisional Checklist for the Southern Rocky Mountain Interactive Flora (SRMIF)" (http://www.unco.edu/biology/herbarium/), which follows APGII, and 2) developing the key to genera (not yet released). The SRMR includes 135 families, 831 genera, 3278 species, 430 infraspecific taxa, and 43 taxa of hybrid origin. The tentative number of taxa to be treated for the interactive key is 3751. Some 118 taxa are endemic to the SRMR. Families with ten or more endemic taxa are Brassicaceae (28), Asteraceae (28), Fabaceae (17), and Plantaginaceae (11). Cryptantha aperta is presumed extinct. The "Southern Rocky Mountain Interactive Flora (SRMIF). Phase I: Key to Families" was posted 24 September 2003 (http://asstudents.unco.edu/students/lucid/). The next posting (Summer 2004) will be a mixed-rank key of all families and genera of most families. One family, probably Ericaceae, will include all individual species, images, geographic distribution, and other add-on information as a preview of the completed SRMIF.

1 - University of Northern Colorado, Department of Biological Sciences, Greeley, Colorado, 80639, USA

Keywords:
bioinformatics
Southern Rocky Mountain Region
interactive keys
plant systematics
Wyoming
New Mexico
Colorado.

Presentation Type: Paper
Session: 24-4
Location: Cottonwood A (Snowbird Center)
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2004
Time: 4:30 PM
Abstract ID:192