Biologisk Institut er pr 1.6.2011 en del af Institut for Bioscience og siderne opdateres ikke. Se det ny instituts hjemmesider på www.bios.au.dk !

About the project.

Biological resources and biodiversity are crucial for development in poor tropical countries. Very often, however, these resources are not well exploited, simply because of lack of knowledge.
The Department of Biological Sciences, University of Aarhus (AAU) has studied the flora and vegetation of several tropical countries for decades in cooperation with universities in the countries concerned. The purpose of this project is to provide access to knowledge and scientific data gathered in and about these countries, in order to be used in the countries of origin. Computers and Internet access are now so widespread, that it is an obvious way to make information available and return this knowledge.

The project supported the development of an internet database of tropical plant images in order to make the information and data in our collections freely available to anyone.  The project has provided photos of approx. 20.000 specimens and live plants. All type specimens at AAU have been digitized so that the database can be used for systematic work at several levels. A significant part of the specimens included in the database (approx. 120.000) provide geographical coordinates, and the database makes distribution maps of the collections held in Herbarium AAU. In the database you may search herbarium specimens for types only the search can be focused to a country, or identification at the level of family, genus or species. These possibilities can be combined to meet the need of the user.

The project homepage provides links to further information on plants, uses, conservation status ect., thus offering a tool for biodiversity research.

The project “Dissemination of Danish Biodiversity Information to the Tropical Countries of Origin” was a 3-year project funded by the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.