Citizens are called to participate in the transcription of the Plant Letters

09 may, 2019≈ 3 min read

For the first time, a Portuguese project will be available on Zooniverse, an international citizen science platform. The "Cartas da Natureza" project (in English, Plant Letters), which aims to transcribe documents from the collections and archives of natural history at the University of Coimbra (UC), will be officially launched on April 17th.

Currently, “the Botany Archive of the University of Coimbra (in the custody of the Department of Life Sciences) contains more than 5000 letters addressed to the directors, naturalists, gardeners and other employees of the Botanical Garden”, reveals the director of the Botanical Garden, António Gouveia . “The main objective of this project is to locate species of plants, their places of origin and the scientists who studied them, based on the correspondence received at the Botanical Garden, between about 1870 and 1928”, he adds.

"A lot of the information and biological data contained in these historical documents concern not only the biodiversity of the national territory, but also many other countries with historical relations with Portugal, mainly from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries", says the project coordinator. For this reason, another “fundamental objective” of this initiative, according to António Gouveia, is that the dissemination of information is “useful in the current efforts of these countries in the definition of conservation strategies”.

The invitation is launched for the “transcription of letters, handwritten or typed, from more than 1100 correspondents from around the world by anyone who wants to participate in this shared reading of historical documents. Most letters are in Portuguese, but letters are available in five other languages ​​(Spanish, French, Italian, German and English).

“Cartas da Natureza” is the first Portuguese project to integrate the collaborative platform Zooniverse, the largest and most popular platform for collaborative research with citizens. Currently, Zooniverse has dozens of active projects and more than 418 million classifications made by almost 1.8 million registered users on the platform. “This type of research, with a large amount of information, is thus facilitated from these collaborative platforms, also reinforcing the UC's commitment to open science”, emphasizes António Gouveia.

The Portuguese project is developed within the scope of the UNESCO Chair in Biodiversity and Conservation for Sustainable Development at the University of Coimbra, in collaboration with the Botanical Garden and the Department of Life Sciences at UC.

“Cartas da Natureza” will be available at: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/catedraunesco/plant-letters

Marta Costa and Karine Paniza