Small Collections Grant
This page is used to provide assessment scores for each grant application assigned to you. Please use the rubric below the grant details to enter your assessment scores and any notes you wish to include.
Please note that all scores entered must be whole numbers (no decimals), or you will be unable to save this form.
Specimen Digitization of the National Herbarium of Rwanda.
Rwanda
Database, Digitally image, Other
Cost (USD):
2000
NHR
National Herbarium of Rwanda (NHR), University of Rwanda (UR).
Objective:
After fifty years of development, the NHR has made progress in developing a biologically diverse and emerging valuable natural history collection vital to the country and region. Specimen digitization of began in 2020, but due to the Covid19 pandemic, access to the herbarium was limited and the digitization workflow ended.
The objectives are:
- capture 10,000 high resolution digital images to complete the digitization of the NHR angiosperm collection,
- publish the digital photographs in the existing Symbiota data portal, therefore sharing digitized data with the global community of scientists
Timetable:
From February through December 2023, we plan to digitally photograph approximately 900 specimens a month. The proposed budget of $2000 (2,186,170 RWF) is an acceptable salary range for a 0.5 appointment as a part-time Biological Technician at the University of Rwanda. Data quality control will be supervised through weekly staff meetings. Data will be published through a Symbiota-based data portal monthly under the supervision of the Curator. At the end of the project, specimen occurence data will be also be published through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The gap analysis will be published as a technical report through the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management (CoEB). This data analysis will help to identifiy undercollected native species and prioritize future specimen collecting needs.
Scoring Rubric
Reviewer's name:
Collection Improvement (max. 120 points)
-
Facilitating access to the physical collections by digitization (e.g., data entry, setting up database structure with an outline of the platform to be used, purchasing equipment, and imaging specimens) – up to 30 points.
-
Enhancing physical collections by improving the conservation status of specimens in the herbarium (e.g., better folders, protecting covers, mounting paper, labeling, etc.) – up to 30 points.
-
Curating specimens (e.g., updating families, species identification, identifying types) – up to 20 points.
-
Increasing our understanding of the flora or funga by making new herbarium specimens available, such as processing of backlog or collecting and mounting of new specimens from understudied sites – up to 20 points.
-
Securing collections by distribution of duplicates (or orphan collections) to other regional or international herbaria or shipping endangered collections to another herbarium – up to 20 points.
This proposal scores:
/120
Methods & Funding (max. 40 points)
-
Match between the proposed budget and methods for the aims described – up to 10 points.
-
Perceived need, the extent to which the project will benefit from IAPT funding: e.g., due to active floristic work or contribution to poorly collected sites, due to threatened conditions of collections, and for the degree of involvement of others (outreach and education). We give more points for herbaria in low- and middle-income countries – up to 20 points.
-
Sharing duplicate specimens with other herbaria – up to 10 points.
This proposal scores:
/40
Broader Impacts (max. 40 points)
-
Degree of regional importance of the collection or the taxonomic importance of the targeted collection – up to 10 points.
-
The project will yield durable benefits (specimens, digitized metadata, databases, websites) – up to 15 points.
-
The project involves outreach/mentoring and broad dissemination – up to 15 points.
This proposal scores:
/40
Year of last successful SCG application:
Has applicant applied for SCG before?:
Plan:
Conservation of both living and non-living botanical specimens has been given a priority at the University of Rwanda. Since 1965, the specimen collection has grown significantly to include more than 20,000 specimens including fungi, ferns, lichens, mosses and flowering plants. The collection maintains significant floristic records from all four National Parks and additional unique landscapes of Rwanda.
The National Herbarium of Rwanda has 20,000 specimens currently databased and barcoded. Data has been published on an existing Symbiota data portal. In 2020, a digitization workflow was developed, and the NHR staff digitally photographed 10,239 specimens. However, photographing of the specimen collection was delayed, then halted due to work restrictions pertaining to the COVID19 pandemic. We propose to re-establish the workflow to digitally photograph 10,000 specimens and database the barcoded data into the database. Secondly, a comparison between the checklist of the flora of Rwanda and the accession species checklist will identify uncollected and under collected species for prioritization for future collecting events.
We will employ a 0.5 part-time Rwandan Master’s of Science candidate (20 hours a week) to digitally photograph 10,000 specimens and initiate the species gap analysis based on a nomenclatural review the Flora of Rwanda checklist and the NHR species checklist.
Institution:
IH Code:
Country:
Target areas:
Applicant First Name/s:
email:
Data analysis
"Other" target:
Michael B. Thomas
Applicant Last Name/s: