GrassPortal
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Grasses are utterly mundane and completely ubiquitous for most of us, wherever we live in the world. Yet the importance of this plant group for humanity is hard to overstate... Find out more about the project on their Facebook page
Grasses are the fuel that feeds human civilization, and a major focus for international research as food security and natural ecosystems come under threat from rising populations and climate change.
This project will raise the profile and augment the contribution of UK science in this international priority area.
The GrassPortal will be a world-class ecological data facility for grasses and science investigating this area.
Analytical and visualisation tools will allow users to explore and understand the environment and ecology of everyone of the 11,000 grass species on Earth, as well as integrating species occurrence data from existing herbarium collections from around the world represented by a spatial multi-dimensional representation of the global environment.
The portal will be central to our understanding of climate change impacts on pastures and grasslands; identifying threatened species; 'bio-prospecting' for new bio-fuels, and in understanding the evolution of innovations.
Download the Project Plan (pdf)Project Staff
Dr. Colin Osbourne, Royal Society University Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer, University of Sheffield