| Abstract Detail
Systematics Section / ASPT Navas, Alfredo [1], Madriñan, Santiago [2]. Interactive key to the plant families of Northwest South America. Taxonomic keys represent the most used tools for identification of different groups of organisms. Identification is an essential step of biological studies, but frequently result in a difficult and frustrating task. Interactive keys have various advantages compared to conventional keys: the use of characters is not restricted, any character may be used in any order, and those characters which are not clearly interpreted by the user may be avoided without affecting or limiting the final result. The values assigned to characters may be changed at any moment of the process of identification. Also, interactive keys may be corrected and maintained very easily by changing the original data matrix directly. Alwyn Gentry’s A Field Guide to the Families and Genera of Woody Plants of Northwest South America constitutes a traditional key that includes nearly 2230 genera and 208 families of neotropical plants. Gentry’s key is based mostly on vegetative characters, for guiding the user across the labyrinth that tropical plant identification represents. This impressive guide is not only applicable in the study area but around the neotropics, but has been criticized as idiosyncratic and ambiguous. In this study, taxa found in Gentry’s guide, images, and mostly vegetative (non ambiguous) characters where used for the creation of an interactive key to the plant families of Northwest South America based on the DELTA-INTKEY system which may be used in conventional computers, as well as on handheld devices based on an application of WINCLADA. The final aim of this work is to produce a key that allows non-expert users to identify neotropical plants to generic level.
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Related Links:
Laboratorio de Botanica y Sistematica
1 - Universidad Catolica, Ecuela de Tecnologias, Tecnologia en Agroindustria, Carrera 7 km 21 via La Caro, Chia, Cundinamarca, 00001, Colombia
2 - Universidad de los Andes, Departamento de Ciencias Biologicas, Laboratorio de Botanica y Sistematica, Apartado Aereo 4976, Bogota, DC, 00001, Colombia
Keywords:
interactive keys
Neotropics
Alwyn Gentry
DELTA-INTKEY
WINCLADA
identification.
Presentation Type: Poster:Posters for Sections
Session: P
Location: Exhibit Hall (Northeast, Southwest & Southeast)/Hilton
Date: Sunday, July 8th, 2007
Time: 8:00 AM
Number: P59075
Abstract ID:2335 |
