The Arctic Flora of Canada and Alaska project
aims to produce a new flora treating all vascular plants (ca. 800 species) in
the Arctic ecozone in Canada and northern Alaska. Our research team includes
botanists from Canada, Norway, and the United States, and is being led by
researchers at the Canadian Museum of Nature. We are using a web platform to
move the Flora beyond traditional standards, and to produce a treatment that is
digital and interactive, taking full advantage of current web and database
technologies. The flora will include parallel taxon descriptions, dichotomous
keys, detailed nomenclatural data, common names, information on traditional
uses, taxonomic comments, and will be richly illustrated with photographs taken
in the field and of herbarium specimens showing characters important for
accurate identification. Tracking specimens examined will allow future
verification of distributional and descriptive data, and will facilitate
production of dynamic distribution maps. The Arctic Flora of Canada and Alaska
website (http://arcticplants.myspecies.info) will be updated with content on an
ongoing basis. The Flora will eventually serve as the key source of information
for anybody who requires accurate and up-to-date information on the Arctic
flora, including those involved in Arctic terrestrial monitoring, students in
the north and elsewhere, and the international botanical community. It will
also serve as an up-to-date source of baseline information on plant
biodiversity in one of the worlds’ most climate-threatened ecosystems.
Poster presented at the XIX
International Botanical Congress, Shenzhen, China, 23–29 July 2017.