New software will automatically recognize plant traits

Scan of a herborized plant (Photo: Herbarium Haussknecht)
Once implemented for the digital images from Herbarium Haussknecht, the software is supposed to be able to extract trait data from digitized plant specimens increasingly available from natural history collections all over the world. Extracted data will contribute to quantify plant functional diversity in the global database of plant traits – TRY – managed at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena by Dr. Jens Kattge. The TRY database is a largely open access global archive with currently 5.6 million curated trait records of about 100,000 plant species.
Jitendra Gaikwad, leader of the iDiv Biodiversity Informatics Group (BDU), coordinates the MAMUDS project, with scientists from the German Center of Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the University of Jena and the University of Sfax (Tunisia). The MAMUDS project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research with about 25.000 Euros for two years and the same amount from the Ministry for Research in Tunisia.
Contact at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry:
Dr. Jens Kattge
Phone: 03641 57-6226
Email: jkattge@bgc-jena.mpg.de