Pl@ntNet
If agricultural development is to be successful and biodiversity is to be conserved, then accurate knowledge of the identity, geographic distribution and uses of plants is essential. Unfortunately, such basic information is often only partially available for professional stakeholders, teachers, scientists and citizens, and often incomplete for ecosystems that possess the highest plant diversity, i.e. Mediterranean and tropical regions.
Pl@ntNet will contribute to filling this void by:
- Developing cutting-edge transdisciplinary research at the frontier between integrative botany and computational sciences, based on the use of large datasets, knowledge of and expertise in plant morphology, anatomy, agronomy, genetics, taxonomy, ecology, biogeography and practical uses.
- Providing free, web-based and easy-access software tools and methods for plant identification and the aggregation, management, sharing and utilization of potentially all kinds of plant-related data.
- Promoting citizen science as a powerful means to enrich databases with new information on plants and to meet the need for capacity building in agronomy, botany and ecology.