Lomonosov Moscow State University

The project of the Lomonosov Moscow State University "National Depository Bank of Live Systems" is focused on the creation of multi-functional network storage of biological material. The main goal of the Depository Bank is to preserve the biodiversity knowledge and to create new ways of biological material use. The portal of the Depository Bank https://depo.msu.ru/ currently holds data on 700K specimens of plants, algae, fungi, and animals from numerous classical biological collections of the Moscow State University.

Part of "National Depository Bank of Live Systems", MSU Herbarium is the second largest herbarium of Russia with 10,000+ additional accessions annually. Loans and exchange are temporarily suspended. Historic collections of G. F. Hoffmann, J. F. Ehrhart, C. B. Trinius, I. Forster, and Herbarium Alchemillarum of V. N. Tikhomirov are stored separately. Specialty: worldwide vascular plants (including 4 500 types), but strong in the former U.S.S.R., especially European part (336 230 specimens), Caucasus (94 550 specimens), Crimea (30 690 specimens), Siberia and Russian Far East (152 920 specimens), and Central Asia and Kazakhstan (91 440 specimens); Mongolia (27 410 specimens); western and central Europe (40 050 specimens); other Asian countries (20 510 specimens); Eurasian bryophytes, but strong in Russia (56 300 specimens). No fungi, lichens, and algae. Date founded: 1765. Staff members are conducting research in many regions of Russia, Vietnam, Mongolia, Caucasian states, and other countries. Collections are not databased, beside a table with numbers of specimens per species per region. Type scanning is in progress.