Description
This dataset contains a subset of records from the National Herbarium Trinidad and Tobago (NHTT). Of the estimated 70,000 records in the Herbarium, nearly 20,000 are represented in this dataset. Those records that did not have an existing accession number were omitted, and ambiguous records (i.e. duplicate accession numbers) were also omitted. The Herbarium occupies seven rooms in the Sir Frank Stockdale Building on the University of the West Indies St Augustine Campus. The plant collections are housed in a well-maintained, temperature-controlled environment in one of these rooms.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 19,597 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Sankar S, Maharaj T, Manaure K, Falby N, Morales J F (2023). Specimens from the National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago. Version 1.0. National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago. Occurrence dataset. https://cloud.gbif.org/lac/resource?r=nhttplants&v=1.0
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 3c9aeaf9-3a57-4b26-9198-ffa15a8f95a3. National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Participant Node Managers Committee.
Keywords
Occurrence; Specimen
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator
- Database Assistant
- The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus
- Originator
- Database Assistant
- The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus
- Originator
- Research Technician
- The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus
- Originator
- Technical Assistant
- The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus
- Metadata Provider ●
- Curator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Curator
- The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8906-8567
- Point Of Contact
- Administrative Assistant
- The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus
Geographic Coverage
Specimens include many from Trinidad and Tobago, as well as others from the wider Caribbean and from the continents of North America, South America, Africa and Europe.
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-90, -180], North East [90, 180] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
All specimens belong to the Phylum Tracheophyta. Specimens were identified from order – species level.
| Class | Dicotyledonae, Liliopsida, Lycopodiopsida, Magnoliopsida, Pinopsida, Polypodiopsida |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1845-01-01 / 2021-05-07 |
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Project Data
Trinidad and Tobago supports a rich biodiversity, largely thanks to its geographical position as a pair of Caribbean islands situated just 11 km off the coast of South America. However, as a small island developing state, it faces numerous pressures of human development on biodiversity and habitat integrity. Well-functioning natural history collections are key in documenting, monitoring and managing this biodiversity.
| Title | Improving national biodiversity data accessibility in Trinidad and Tobago |
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| Identifier | BID-CA2020-039-NAC |
| Funding | Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) is a multi-year programme funded by the European Union and led by GBIF with the aim of enhancing capacity for effective mobilization and use of biodiversity data in research and policy in the ‘ACP’ nations of sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. More information: https://www.gbif.org/programme/82243/bid-biodiversity-information-for-development |
The personnel involved in the project:
- Originator
- Point Of Contact
Sampling Methods
Specimens were mainly collected by hand, and were brought to the National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago.
| Study Extent | Global |
|---|---|
| Quality Control | Specimen identifications were checked by the National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago. |
Method step description:
- The main collections are of dried, vascular plants, mounted on thick-grade archival paper and placed in species folders within genera, and arranged by plant family within vacuum-sealed metal cabinets. The room temperature is maintained at 20℃ to prevent the deterioration of the plant material by pests and diseases. The general process for this was as follows: 1. Collected plant specimens were dried and pressed in the field by stacking the newspaper folders in a plant press. 2. At the laboratory the specimens were examined, sorted, re-arranged in their folders and the field notes checked. They were restacked in the presses and subjected to proper drying. 3. Sufficiently dried specimens were decontaminated by deep freezing for a week to kill all stages of insects with which they may be infested. 4. Mounting and identification was done; identifications were confirmed or made using a variety of literature sources (scientific papers, books, online resources).
Collection Data
| Collection Name | Collection of the National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago |
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| Specimen preservation methods | Dried and pressed |
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Bibliographic Citations
- Catalogue of Life. Accessed 7th June 2022. https://www.catalogueoflife.org/
- National Herbarium of Trinidad and Tobago. Accessed 26th October 2022 https://sta.uwi.edu/herbarium/
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | https://cloud.gbif.org/lac/resource?r=nhttplants |
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