This page lists software which is used in collection management. It is an uncritical listing, the software has not been tested or approved by the subgroup in any way. The selection is based on the following criteria: (*) The software helps to manage specimens or observations of biological objects ("units"). Taxonomic tools helping to generate checklists etc. are not included if they do not include unit management functions. (*) The software must be functional and in use by at least one collection (however, some beta versions have been included). (*) The software must be freely available (for free or as a commercial product). (*) It should not need re-programming to be adapted by the new user. ... [Information of the supplier]
The interactive keys allow the user to select which features of a plant to use for identification and in what order to use them. Our keys have been developed with the user in mind. They were created using Lucid, a program made by the Centre for Biological Information Technology (CBIT) at the University of Queensland. The dichotomous keys require the user to give information on features selected by the author of the key and in the order selected by the author. They were created using Phoenix, another program made by CBIT. The resulting keys are more flexible than printed keys because they allow users to skip leads, returning to the skipped leads later, if desired. Our Fact sheets contain high quality images, treatments, line drawings, and many other useful data. Many of our fact sheets also feature interactive Google Maps displaying global distribution data from GBIF. Our glossary contains succinct, useful definitions for botanical terms that you will encounter in our keys. We have included many high quality images to help illustrate the definitions. (The special focus of these resources in on monocotyledonous plants, esp. Poaceae and Cyperaceae.) ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
B-VegAna (Vegetation edition and Analysis) is an integrated software package oriented towards the storage, management and analysis of ecological data. The package consists of several programs which can be run independently. It includes ten applications (Fagus, Quercus, Ginkgo, Yucca, Zamia, Taxus, Webherb, Wisteria WMS, Welwitschia and Araucaria). The first seven applications offer the opportunity for any user to manage biodiversity data in many interesting ways with an unified interface and data format, the last three apps provide webservices. After almost nine years of development they have become solid tools with a clearly defined added value. Examples for available applications are: (1) Ginkgo - multivariate analysis tool. Oriented mainly towards ordination and classification of ecological data, stressing methods based on symmetric matrices. (2) Quercus - a relevé table editor. It handles relevé data allowing the user to perform phytosociological works. (3) Fagus - floristic records editor. It can handle data coming from field surveys, bibliographic sources or collections. (4) Yucca - a cartographic plotting tool, that enables the user to plot taxa or syntaxa distributions. Taxon, syntaxon or bibliographic thesauri can be edited within the programs. ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
Morph·D·Base is an open web data base that has been developed to serve scientific research and education. It provides a platform for storing the detailed documentation of all material, methods, procedures, and concepts applied, together with the specific parameters, values, techniques, and instruments used during morphological data production. In other words, it's purpose is to provide a publicly available resource for recording and documenting morphological metadata. Moreover, it is also a repository for different types of media files that can be uploaded in order to serve as support and empirical substantiation of the results of morphological investigations. ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
The JUICE program is a widely used non-commercial software package for editing and analyses of phytosociological data. It is continually developed since 1998 at the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Program functions are fully described in English manual. It makes use of the previously-developed TURBOVEG software for entering and storing such data and it offers a quite powerful tool for vegetation data analysis. Various options include classification using COCKTAIL, divisive and aglomerative classification methods, calculation of interspecific associations, fidelity measures, average Ellenberg indicator values, preparation of synoptic tables, automatic sorting of relevé tables, and export of table data into other applications (text editors, table processors or mapping packages). JUICE is optimised for use in association with TURBOVEG which is the most widespread database program for storing phytosociological data in Europe. However, three other import formats are available for other users. ... [Information of the supplier]
Draft interactive keys and plant character data sets for selected groups of U.S. plants are available for use and testing on-line or by downloading the specific PLANTS Identification application. Unlike a traditional plant identification key that provides you with only two choices at each step (a dichotomous key), these keys let you select multiple characters simultaneously (polyclave key). This makes more character data available in the key and minimizes the number of steps it takes to identify a plant. ... [Information of the supplier]
Since 2001 the German Working Group on Vegetation Databases is dedicated to the development of phytosociological databases. In the face of rampant biodiversity loss, the care for native species and the restoration of communities and ecosystem functions has become an important tool for nature conservation. Interfering with ecological complexity, restoration has to be informed by profound knowledge of species and their interactions in communities. To anticipate actionism, its success has to be carefully measured. Vegetation databases must play a crucial role in the planning, monitoring and readjustment of restoration measures. As comprehensive archives of species co-occurrence vegetation databases allow to define target species and forecast interactions with their competitors and facilitators. For given target species, they allow to identify habitats and communities most suited for re-establishment. Monitoring data stored in databases are readily accessible to statistical analysis of effects and trajectories. The German working group on vegetation databases has therefore chosen ecological restoration as the focal topic of its 13th workshop to be held at the Federal Institute of Hydrology (BFG) in Koblenz from 24 - 26 February 2014. ... [Information of the supplier]
Vegetation databases have proven an irreplaceable medium to store and maintain the vast volume of data produced by vegetation scientists worldwide. They do not only protect data and the laborious work invested to produce them from getting lost, but also enable scientists to analyse large datasets in order to answer current research questions. A major task of present research is to find underlying ecological, temporal and spatial processes that shape plant communities. In this context, databases can serve as important tools supplementing experimental approaches. Inference of processes requires e.g. linkages to environmental data at adequate temporal and spatial scales and plant functional data, but also advanced statistical methods like path analysis techniques. The next meeting of the German Working Group on Vegetation Databases is dedicated to the role databases are playing in detecting ecological processes from various vegetation-related data. We encourage presentations (talks and posters) focussing on questions and methods with special emphasis on the analysis of vegetation data with respect to underlying ecological processes and cause and effect relationships. Besides, more general contributions on other technical or scientific advances in vegetation databanking are welcome. The workshop will be hosted by the Landscape Ecology Group of the University of Oldenburg from 4th to 6th of March 2015. We will start the workshop by giving an introduction to path analysis and structural equation modelling (Wednesday, 4th of March). These statistical analyses are well suited to identify causal relationships between parameters, test ecological hypotheses for their significance and are able to deal with large datasets. The following two days will we dedicated to talks and posters presenting ecological research questions inferred from vegetation databases. ... [Information of the supplier]
The goals of this project are to provide a central repository for public maize information and present it in a way that creates intuitive biological connections for the researcher with minimal effort as well as provide a series of computational tools that directly address the questions of the biologist in an easy-to-use form. (...) The data in MaizeGDB is broken down into a number of interconnected data types (BACs, ESTs, Gene products, loci, ...)." ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
The Oryzabase is a comprehensive rice science database established in 2000 by rice researcher's committee in Japan. The database is originally aimed to gather as much knowledge as possible ranging from classical rice genetics to recent genomics and from fundamental information to hot topics. The Oryzabase consists of five parts, (1) genetic resource stock information, (2) gene dictionary, (3) chromosome maps, (4) mutant images, and (5) fundamental knowledge of rice science. We are planning to do more extensive cross-referencing of Oryzabase to the major DNA sequence database, literature database and other plant databases in order to provide the wealth of information to rice researchers. We are calling for additional mutants and mapped gene information to incorporate into the Oryzabase. Newly identified mutants and mapped trait genes published in the scientific journals will be welcome to integrate into the Oryzabase maps. ... [Information of the supplier]
