Small Collections Grant

The herbarium facilities are currently placed in the same lab where students take courses of Systematic botany and other curricular modules. The National University of Mar del Plata and the Institute of Marine and Coastal Research managed to get a specific place to move all the MDQ herbarium specimen cupboards and equipment since February 2020. This new location for collections will improve the conditions of conservation of the current collection, complete the necessary equipment and increase the time of digitalizing procedures of specimens to publish them in open access portals. The number of specimens is actively increasing so there is an urgent need to acquire new metal cupboards for specimen backlogging. We have detected some specimen damage by beetles. Acquiring a new freezer will enhance the systematic freezing treatment to income and currently stored specimens. The MDQ collection includes the 70% of the Lycophytes and ferns cited for Buenos Aires province. In order to complete the Lycophytes and fern collection from the Southeastern Buenos Aires province, field trips to the orographic system of Tandilia and Ventania will be planned. These hills environments of south-central-eastern Argentina have a high Lycophytes and ferns richness, their location is very close to MDQ herbarium, and thus they bring a good opportunity to enhance this collection. For this, funding is requested to afford some travel costs.