Cross-cutting project 2
An expandable web-enabled organism and keys to the macrophytes of Co. Clare and the Aran Islands

Project leaders: Prof. John Parnell and Prof. Michael Guiry

Project Statement
Over a period of two years this project will develop an interactive, publicly accessible, visually exciting, web-based inventory and keys to the flowering plants and marine macroalgae of the Burren and the Aran Islands using the Linnaeus II web-enabled programme which ultimately will be expandable to cover the entire Irish macrophyte flora and fauna. Additionally, all macrophytes reported from the Burren and the Aran Islands will be added to the Irish Species Register together with publicly available photographs, and researchers involved in the project will be encouraged to add further information and pictures via browsers on their desktops. The key will be directed primarily at non-specialists and will be made accessible via a new website and through existing websites, such as Clare County Council’s Heritage website and Burrenbeo, an interactive interpretative centre for the Burren.

Objectives and targets
This project has the objective of developing and making available:

• Specific ecosystem/habitat based user-friendly interactive, web-based, visual, multiple access keys to the macrophytes of the Burren and the Aran Islands.

• A data-set and data structure that will facilitate easy expansion of the keys to include further organisms and other heritage-critical area in Ireland.

• A list of all organisms reported from the Burren and the Aran Islands mapped to the published scientific literature and, for the major macrophytes, photographs to facilitate identification in combination with the keys and existing works of reference.

• An interface that is field and office usable on as diverse a set of platforms as possible – including Palm-top, PC (Windows) and Mac (OSX) systems.