Introduction
RBGE "WebCyte2" is a database dedicated to assist research into the cytology of members of the family Gesneriaceae, a large and interesting family of predominantly tropical and subtropical plants
The past few years saw major changes in the classification of the Gesneriaceae, such as the addition of Sanangoideae as a third subfamily, and a new tribal and subtribal structure (Weber et al 2013), and greatly re-circumscribed genera to reflect natural relationships (Möller et al 2013).
These changes have had a significant impact on the taxonomic names of entries in the ‘WebCyte’ cytology database as it was. The updated ‘WebCyte2’ database accommodates these changes, and displays the name as given in the published work, the synonym and the currently accepted name and classification above genus level.The database consists of two parts:
The searchable database allows querying (by synonym or accepted names) and display of cytological information by genus or species. There are two options for the display of search results:
- short output [synonymy, short reference, chromosome count]
- full output [classification, synonymy, full reference, chromosome count, methods, voucher specimen details]
The statistic section allows the display of diverse database characteristics:
- summary of all counts by year (provides a line chart overview of the counts by publication date)
- coverage, by genus, subtribe, tribe or subfamily (the output is by default a scatter chart). This section also provides an estimate of the proportional coverage within a genus or above, with an option of a tabulated summary of counts broken down by haploid chromosome number (n) by clicking the box.
For all enquiries contact the "WebCyte" co-ordinator.