Digitization of the Marine Herbarium “TAR” to Increase Biodiversity Knowledge

Created March 24, 2026

Updated on May 7, 2026

approved

Over the past twenty years, significant efforts have been made to digitize natural collections. This process represents a crucial step in preserving and enhancing biodiversity data. In this context, the phycology team from the Institute for Water Research (CNR-IRSA) in Taranto (southern Italy), as a partner of the NRRP Project ITINERIS, and within the nascent European Research Infrastructure “Distributed System of Scientific Collections” (DiSSCo), answered to the challenge of digitizing and sharing the extensive biodiversity data preserved in the marine macrophyte collection Herbarium TAR. This herbarium includes over 500 species collected between 1982 and 2025. Digitization was carried out in accordance with international standards for imaging and in compliance with FAIR principles for metadata curation. A total of 353 digital specimens were produced, including 152 species of seaweeds (76 Rhodophyta, 47 Heterokontophyta, and 29 Chlorophyta) and 3 species of Tracheophyta. Notably, 15 non-indigenous species were documented. Part of the metadata, structured using the Darwin Core standard, has been published on GBIF. This initiative, carried out within the ITINERIS framework, highlights the value of both long-term biodiversity monitoring and digital data in supporting research on climate change, biological invasions, and the conservation of marine ecosystems.

Tags:

Item URL

https://data.d4science.org/ctlg/ITINERIS-HUB/digitization_of_the_marine_herbarium_tar_to_increase_biodiversity_knowledge

Basic

Language

English

MainTitle

Digitization of the Marine Herbarium “TAR” to Increase Biodiversity Knowledge

Original ids

https://doi.org/10.3390/d17090641

Research Infrastructure

DISSCO

Type

publication

bestAccessRight

OPEN

countries

null

Creator/Author

Full name

Loredana Papa;
Ester Cecere;
Antonella Petrocelli, orcid: 0000-0001-7556-9451;
Lucia Spada, orcid: 0000-0002-5346-9449

Other

Description

Over the past twenty years, significant efforts have been made to digitize natural collections. This process represents a crucial step in preserving and enhancing biodiversity data. In this context, the phycology team from the Institute for Water Research (CNR-IRSA) in Taranto (southern Italy), as a partner of the NRRP Project ITINERIS, and within the nascent European Research Infrastructure “Distributed System of Scientific Collections” (DiSSCo), answered to the challenge of digitizing and sharing the extensive biodiversity data preserved in the marine macrophyte collection Herbarium TAR. This herbarium includes over 500 species collected between 1982 and 2025. Digitization was carried out in accordance with international standards for imaging and in compliance with FAIR principles for metadata curation. A total of 353 digital specimens were produced, including 152 species of seaweeds (76 Rhodophyta, 47 Heterokontophyta, and 29 Chlorophyta) and 3 species of Spermatophyta. Notably, 15 non-indigenous species were documented. Part of the metadata, structured using the Darwin Core standard, has been published on GBIF. This initiative, carried out within the ITINERIS framework, highlights the value of both long-term biodiversity monitoring and digital data in supporting research on climate change, biological invasions, and the conservation of marine ecosystems.

Publication Date

2025-09-11

Publisher

MDPI

isGreen

false

isInDiamondJournal

false

Software

Publication

Name

Diversity

Publication

Article

Starting page

641

iss

17(9)

issnOnline

1424-2818

vol

641

Other Research Product

Detailed informations

system:type

Research Product

Management Info

Author

Catalogue Manager ITINERIS

Version

Last Updated

May 7, 2026, 11:13 (UTC)

Created

March 24, 2026, 23:25 (UTC)

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