Images of world's largest rotifer reference collection captured on CD in less than three months by Auto-Montage
Syncroscopy reports that the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, has used its Auto-Montage 3D imaging software to rapidly produce a CD containing images of more than 700 species plates of rotifers.
The CD, known as the Frank J Myers Rotifera Collection, contains accurate images of 744 rotifer species on slides and is the world's largest virtual collection of this animal group.
Rotifers are important because they live in water and transform organic matter into protein.
Without rotifers, fish cannot survive and the presence of some species is a good biomarker of the ecological health of rivers and lakes, which makes identifying species correctly very important.
Christian Jersabek, the curator of the rotifer collection explained: "The Frank J Myers Rotifera Collection has excellent slide preparations but cannot be moved from Philadelphia.
"This means it is not accessible to many scientists, which is why we wanted to produce a CD of the collection.
"However, to make the CD without Auto-Montage we would have had to include around 40-50 thousand images to provide all 3D information of each rotifer on the slide.
"Using Auto-Montage we still captured around 40-50 thousand source images but because the software added all the in-focus sections together to produce one focused image, it was quick and easy to do this and produce a final set of just 1500 images.
"Without Auto-Montage we would not have this great CD, which will be invaluable to rotifer taxonomists everywhere," Dr Jersabek concluded.
Martin Smith, Syncroscopy's divisional manager added: "It is very satisfying to see scientists at highly regarded institutions like the Academy of Natural Sciences using the Auto-Montage software. "The images on the CD really endorse how easily Auto-Montage can create accurate reference collections of small plants or animals, making them available to scientists throughout the world."
