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Activities
of the TAMU-BWG have produced a wealth of internet resources in plant systematics
that are easily transported to the teaching environment. Texas A&M
courses in this area, Botany
301 - Taxonomy of Flowering Plants, Botany
328 - Plants and People, and Botany
620 - Field Systematic Botany, are supplemented by strong WWW systems.
These pages, open for full public access, include access to lab
tutorials, lecture
notes, exam
tutorials, field
trip reviews, and many other sources of information relating to
the specific courses and plant systematics in general. The Botany
group also supports an active series of undergraduate research projects
(Botany
485) and seminars (Biology
481). |
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Another
area of TAMU-BWG research involves the construction of 'gateway' systems
that allow users with varying levels of expertise to access biodiversity
information as structured by the taxonomic hierarchy. This work, pursued
in collaboration with the Biota of North
America Program, is exemplified by the North
Amercian checklist System. This system provides entry to the BONAP
checklist via vascular plant Family (either techhical or "common" name)
or vascular plant generic names (either technical or "common"). These machine-generated
query menus allow selection of a query string that, when sent to an indexed
file, returns all matches as a page formatted for the web browser. |
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Biodiversity
is defined in taxonomic terms, and those seeking solutions to biodiversity
problems must be able to work within a taxonomic classification system.
The system currently employed for many modern treatments of flowering plants
is that of Authur Cronquist. The Flowering
Plant Gateway allows the user to 'browse' through the higher levels
of this taxonomic hierarchy to locate information that might be available
on the internet for a given family. This system, machine-generated and
frequently updated, was initially developed for local student use because
our courses follow the Cronquist system. |
