Collections

General Description

Botanical garden

Work with local endangered species, work with locally bred ornamentals (national program). The Botanical Garden of the University of Tartu has, since 2002, actively participated in Estonian National Programme “Collection and Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture”, financed by the Ministry of Agriculture of Estonia. The main tasks of the Botanical Garden within the activities of the conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture is to find out, collect and conserve local cultivars of ornamentals and the species of medical and aromatic plants.

Link: Research page (in Estonian)

Botanical and Mycological Museum

Taxonomy and systematics of plants, animals and fungi, their ecology, distribution and protection in Estonia and globally. Preserving and managing specimens, fruit bodies and living cultures collected from Estonia and worldwide. Developing an online, open data platform of biodiversity data management services and analytical tools. 

Link: NHM scientific activities (in Estonian)

Biological informatics

Developing digital repositories for the biological and associated data. Major product is PlutoF cloud system (http://plutof.ut.ee) which provides free online service for the managing, sharing and publishing biological databases. Currently it has more than 1700 users from more than 40 countries.

Link: PlutoF start page

Link: Strategy and development plan (in Estonian)

Research Fields

• Botany (vascular plants, bryophytes and from Algae fam. Desmidales).
• Mycology, incl. lichenized fungi (Ascomycota, Basidiomycota: ectomycorrhizal, lichenized and lichenicolous fungi in wide sense; taxonomical expertise of the orders Helotiales and Thelephorales, genera Hypomyces & allies, Cystoderma & allies, Cortinarius)
• Zoological Museum: Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Rodentia.

Research Initiative