Biosystematics Lab

Plant taxonomy lab

The herbarium, a dried plant repository is part of the plant taxonomy lab at ATREE. We have over 400 authenticated plant collections from forests of southern Western Ghats largely from Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR), Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife sanctuary, and Male Mahadeshwara Hills. The collections are stored at Bangalore and at the Biligiri field station, BRT and Agasthyamalai Community-based Conservation Centre (ACCC), Singampatti, Tirunelveli. Data about the herbarium specimens, such as location, date, forest type, species name, family, characters observed in the field, uses, local name etc, are entered in the computer database Biota, specially designed for archiving museum specimens. The lab plans to maintain a digital pictures library linked to the herbarium database and made available to research purpose through the net.

Invertebrate museum

Insects

ATREE's invertebrate museum houses 100,000 insect specimens representing more than 1000 species belonging to 180 families and 19 orders. Specimens have been identified to family level, with 130 species of dung beetles, 80 species of ants, 60 species of Chalcidoidea and 30 species of Carabidae identified to species level. The collection represents rare families like Meinertellidae (Microcoryphia), Laemophloeidae (Coleoptera), Sminthuridae (Collembola), Gonatopodinae (Hymenoptera), and rare species of other taxa.