World Flora Online is an international project to create an open-access web-based collection of Earth's hundreds of thousands of vascular plant and moss species. The goal of WFO is to document a full inventory of earth's plants in order to protect them from extinction. Used by conservation planners, ecologists, and policymakers, this online project provides a global overview of plant biodiversity.  A complete WFO species record will contain a description, an illustration, an information on classification, geographic range, IUCN conservation status, human uses, and links to data sources. All content is available without registration, but you will need to create an account to download data and PDFs.

WFO. World Flora Online. accessed November 10, 2024, http://www.worldfloraonline.org 

The Tree of Life (TOL) web project is an interactive database of all biological taxons. The database is constructed as a ‘tree’ where users can click on different ‘branches’, or families/genuses, that lead to different ‘leaves’, or a single species. The website states that the goal of the TOL is to “contain a page with pictures, text, and other information for every species and for each group of organisms, living or extinct.” This is a great resource for students to explore different taxonomy groups and see how one species relates to one another.

The TOL is a collaborative project created by hundreds of expert and amateur contributors consisting of professors, government professionals, and web designers. The TOL is made up of over 10,000 web pages about different aspects of biodiversity, characteristics of different organism groups, as well as their evolutionary history. The material is organized in a ‘tree-like’ structure, where general pages are linked to more specific pages . There are also some browsing functions including popular pages, recent additions, or random pages. Each record includes references. The intended audience for this website is anyone looking for information about a particular group of organisms, biologist seeking identification keys, figures, or phylogenetic trees, or biodiversity educators.

TOL. Tree of Life Web Project. accessed November 10, 2024. tolweb.org/tree/  

If you've ever stumbled upon a cool plant and wished you had something that could help you identify the species, this is the app for you! Seek by iNaturalist is a free app that uses image recognition technology to ID the plant and animal species you see. Download the app, click the camera icon to open the Seek Camera, and point the camera at the plant you want to identify until the ID meter at the top can identify the species. If you want to add this species to your observation collection, take a picture once the ID meter finds the species. Users can unlock badges for observing different species and participating in monthly observation challenges. No internet is required to observe and identify species, so you can use this resource anywhere!

Download the app here

Hosted by Matt Candeias, a plant ecologist who studies plant biodiversity and author of the book of the same title, In Defense of Plants is a podcast celebrating everything botany "from the smallest duckweed to the tallest redwood". Following this podcast is perfect for aspiring botanists to stay informed on recent findings in the field, or find a single episode that sparks your interest. With a new episode released every week, you are guaranteed to find one that interests you. 

Listen to In Defense of Plants on your preferred streaming service, or visit the In Defense of Plants website.