Internship report

Report on an internship at the Botanical State Collection Munich by Mareike Goetz, University of Bayreuth, intern April to May 2001

Description of the activities:

• Herbarium technical work on fungi, lichens, mosses and vascular plants (pressing, preparing, inserting, recording, etc.).
• Administrative, organizational and service work, e.g. in the field of exchange and loan transactions, inventorying, packing, data entry into databases
• DNA analyses and chromosome counts on plant material
• Work on data entry and presentation of a collection (e.g. vouchers, watercolors) on the internet (localization of watercolors, barcode etiquette, scanning, database entry, etc.)
• Working to identify and characterize vascular plants, fungi, and lichens (cutting techniques, measuring techniques, locating specimens, studying literature)

Field Report:

“As a biology student, I have benefited greatly from an internship at the State Collection. I think it is useful to gain experience outside of the university, i.e. in the workplace, while still a student. The possibility to work practically, even if only for a limited time, provides interesting impressions and one gathers many new ideas. There is the opportunity to discuss with the staff and to learn about their projects. I was positively surprised by the openness and interest with which I was met here. I was asked to work independently (for partial results see Water colors of Fungi by Fritz Wohlfarth) and gained a lot of experience.”