Jordan Teisher
Jordan Teisher is Vice President of Biodiversity Research and Director of the Herbarium at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, he received a B.S. degree in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Moravian College. He attended Washington University in St. Louis for his graduate studies, working with Drs. Barbara Schaal and Toby Kellogg on the systematics and evolution of grasses (subfamilies Arundinoideae and Micrairoideae).
Following his graduate work, Dr. Teisher returned to his home state, spending five years in Philadelphia as the Botany Collection Manager at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. At the Academy, he was responsible for the care of approximately 1.4 million specimens in the oldest institutional herbarium in the Western Hemisphere.
In 2021, Dr. Teisher returned to St. Louis and the Missouri Botanical Garden to oversee one of the largest herbaria in the world, with nearly 8 million specimens of preserved plants. As VP of Biodiversity Research, he leads a group of 70 researchers and other professionals in the Herbarium, the Peter H. Raven Library and Archives, and the Plant Taxonomy and Evolution Department. Since 2024, Dr. Teisher has been co-PI with Dr. Matthew Austin on the Revolutionizing Species Identification Project – an anonymously funded 6-year project to digitize the MBG Herbarium, develop new tools for species identification, and provide training in herbarium taxonomy for early career botanists.
40 Years of Botanical Data (in 15 Minutes) – Tropicos, Conservation, and the Missouri Botanical Garden
Abstract:
Established in 1982 as a digital repository for bryophyte names, Tropicos® (https://tropicos.org) is one of the oldest and most comprehensive databases for plants in the world. It includes more than 1.4M scientific names, 7.87M specimen records, and 3.75M digital images in addition to records for collectors, authors, publications, and more. Tropicos is a trusted source of critical information needed for plant conservation, accessed millions of times by researchers, conservationists, and other stakeholders each year.
Tropicos’ success rests on three key strengths: 1.) integration of various data types into one relational interface; 2.) the close connection between curation of the physical herbarium and its digital counterparts; and 3.) a global community of users, who provide data, edits, and feedback for continuous improvements. In this webinar presentation, I will provide a brief overview of Tropicos’ historic and ongoing relevance for botanical research and conservation. I will also highlight a few lesser-known features of the platform as well as recent changes to the database in support of the digital extended specimen.