Digital Herbarium of Moscow State University: The Largest Russian Biodiversity Database

Abstract

In 2015–2016, 785887 specimens were scanned at the Herbarium of Moscow State University (MW), which comprised 77.7% of the total collection. The metadata of the digital herbarium include the identifier (ID) of each specimen, its species name, and geographical reference (area code). As the largest in Russia database with respect to biodiversity, the Herbarium includes 712925 images of specimens of vascular plants and 72962 specimens of bryophytes. The digital herbarium is interrelated with the Catalogue of Life international database and has enriched it with 160 new species. Images of 781882 specimens have been put online as JPG files (the resolution is 300 dpi) on the web portal of the National Depository Bank of Live Systems (https://plant.depo.msu.ru/). The portal is open for all Russian biological collections.