Seaweed Herbarium- אוסף אצות
IOLR Seaweed Herbarium was conceptualized in 2014 and contains more than 1,500 dried-preserved specimens collected along the Israel Mediterranean Sea (IMS) shores, from 1953. The collection is dynamic in that it is constantly updated and taxonomically revised, and hosts digitalized representatives of all three Phyla, Chlorophyta (green), Rhodophyta (red) and Ochrophyta (brown). Such database will contribute to describe and understand trends in macroalgal biodiversity in the region and, specifically, how our marine ecosystems have changed over the past decades as a result of climate change, bioinvasions, and a wide range of other human activities.
IOLR Seaweed Herbarium also holds specimens collected over the years from the Sinai Peninsula and Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea, Malta shorelines, and a collection of intertidal seaweeds from the Canary Islands, Sicily and south of France.
You are welcome to “click” below to choose the taxonomic group of your interest:
This Herbarium is not intended to solve taxonomic and nomenclature problems of the nearly 300 seaweed species reported for the IMS. Rather, this site has been created to point out what we know (and what we need to find out) to understand the patterns in time and space of seaweeds from the Israel Mediterranean Sea.