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Estonian eFlora available to all

13.10.2009 - 09:24 |  Looduskalender
Text: Tiina Randlane, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu
Translation: Liis
See: Flora of Estonia
Trees, bushes and herbaceous plants
 
The Estonian eFlora, an interactive guide, is addressed to anyone who is interested in the flora of Estonia; it is free to use from the end of September. 
 
The guide was prepared within the international nature education project KeyToNature, in cooperation between the University of Trieste (Italy), the University of Tartu and the Estonian University of Life Sciences (Estonia). The key, or species identifier, can be used by school children, students and all nature friends who want to know what plants grow in our forests, fields and wetlands. The guide contains nearly 1 100 of the more than 1 500 plant species registered in Estonia. The most common introduced species of trees and bushes in our gardens and parks are included, in addition to the native and naturalised taxa, as requested by teachers. Certain groups from some plant genera have been left out from the present treatment, i e those where the systematic position is debated, and where taxa are difficult to distinguish even for specialists (such as species of Alchemilla, Craetagus, Hieracium, Rosa, Salix and Taraxa-cum), as well as some very rare species.


The English word “key” literally means a key as in doorkey, but in the biological sciences it is also used for identification schemes for living organisms. The so-called traditional identification guides have been widely used already for a long time. A static structure (the structure is unchangeable) and dichotomy (employing the thesis-antithesis principle) are typical features of these schemes.

Today, electronic means have also come to be used for the identification of living organisms. They may work on a dichotomous basis, but choices between several preset alternatives become possible as well. The interactive electronic species identification schemes have several advantages over the static systems in books – the order of viewing and judging the characteristics is no longer important, it is possible to start with the simplest or most apparent property; illustrations can be used to a much greater extent; for each choice made, it is easy to see the number of possible species still remaining, and it is also possible to study them in detail if needed.
 
The advantages above depend on the organisation of the electronic keys which remains “hidden” behind the visible screen display and which relies on a database of the characteristics of the species included in the species finder. Such databases exist for many groups of organisms in different countries and languages, but they have frequently been created using different computer programmes, and so are not compatible with each other. One task of the project “KeyToNature” is to make the information in these databases exchangeable, which would make it possible to compile interactive species finders much more extensively.

A second fundamental task is to make these electronic keys generally known, and to test their usefulness at different education levels – from primary school to master studies. With school children the aim is not so much to learn to know the individual species as to learn to take note of characteristic properties of a species, and the diversity of nature as a whole. This has already started in Italy where complete data bases exist for local plants (database Dryades) and lichens (database Italic). With the aid of botanic experts, teachers can compile lists of plants in their neighbourhood, school garden or park, and request an electronic species identifier from the database holder, which can then be tested together with the pupils during lessons.

Such complete databases are not available yet in Estonia, but it is possible to test interactive keys already (http://www.ut.ee/ial5/keytonature/est/tool.html). In the course of the project several interactive keys will be compiled, and tested by different user groups.

The project is supported by the European Union Commission programme eContentplus, with 14 organisations from 11 European countries participating. The Estonian representative in the project is the Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences of University of Tartu.

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