Missouri Botanical Garden Open Conference Systems, TDWG 2013 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

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PlutoF – multifunctional workbench for taxonomical and ecological research, biodiversity data collection and analysis
Kessy Abarenkov, Urmas Kõljalg, Marko Peterson, Siim Halapuu, Janno Jõgeva, Karl Ranna, Henrik Nilsson

Building: Main Building 1st Floor
Room: Salone degli Oceani
Last modified: 2013-09-15

Abstract


PlutoF (http://plutof.ut.ee) is a platform providing database and cloud computing services for taxonomical, ecological, and phylogenetic research. It also provides an infrastructure for collecting and analyzing biodiversity data, (e.g. species observations, molecular data) by citizen scientists and individual researchers. PlutoF includes a relational database, a web-based workbench built upon it as a thin client, and a number of public web sites displaying and searching the data through a RESTful Application Programming Interface (API). For example, the UNITE database (http://unite.ut.ee) provides a reference DNA barcoding sequence dataset and software tools for molecular identification of fungi. The Estonian eBiodiversity database (http://elurikkus.ut.ee) gathers all available biodiversity data (collection specimens, field observations, molecular data, multimedia, Red List status, etc.) linked to taxa present in Estonia.

PlutoF workbench allows its users to:

  1. manage ecological studies and associated data (e.g. species observations, molecular data, multimedia);
  2. manage and build biological classifications, country-based taxon lists and names of taxa;
  3. use the analysis module and reference DNA sequence datasets to examine molecular sequence data;
  4. upload molecular sequence data into the UNITE database and annotate DNA sequences in the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) for quality and additional metadata.