Taxonomic software for the Berlin Model
Döring, Markus, Glück, Karl, Güntsch, Anton & Li Jinling, Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin Dahlem, FUB Department of Biodiversity Informatics and Laboratories, Königin-Luise-Str 6-8, D - 14191 Berlin[Software demonstration]
The Berlin Model is a comprehensive relational data model for taxonomy comprising a sound representation of potential taxa, a detailed botanical nomenclature section, and a reference section capable of treating nested references of various kinds. Based on the IOPI model (http://www.bgbm.org/BioDivInf/Docs/IOPI_Model/), its core is the potential taxon section giving the means to properly process and preserve taxonomic concepts (taxa as circumscribed by a reference) and factual data linked to them.
Originally specified to serve as a backbone database structure for an Internet editor implemented in the course of the Euro+Med PlantBase project, other projects (AlgaTerra, MoReTax, IOPI global plant checklist, Dendroflora of El Salvador, Med Checklist database) adopted the Berlin model and contributed to its continuing development and documentation towards its present state (http://www.bgbm.org/biodivinf/docs/bgbm-model/).
Several software tools will be demonstrated. The Euro+Med remote editor is an Internet tool giving taxonomic experts the opportunity to carry out taxonomic revisions on a Berlin Model database over the World Wide Web using an arbitrary browser (no applet, no plug-in). The application is based on the ColdFusion application server using CFML, server-side Java classes, and JavaScript for rudimentary syntax checking. A separate VBA-based editor has been implemented for local database editing. It offers an extra module for processing type information as well as forms for convenient input and display of geographic distributions. Several other tools are dedicated to maintenance tasks such as data import from external sources, data integrity checking and data publishing on the World Wide Web.