Symbiota, A Virtual Flora Model for the Southwestern United States

Symbiota，美国西南部的虚拟植物区系模型

• 批准号: 0743827
• 负责人: Corinna Gries
• 金额: $ 50.34万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-07-15 至 2012-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0743827&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Symbiota; Virtual; Flora; Model; Southwestern

Arizona State University has been awarded a grant to develop a computer-based identification system for plants and animals. The system, named Symbiota, will introduce an improved data model and highly efficient computer programs to speed the identification process. Based on hierarchically organized data linking descriptions of characteristics to taxonomic ranks this system dynamically builds identification keys for any user determined combination of species of interest. The implementation of inheritance and object oriented principles in Symbiota greatly reduces data entry efforts, handles species concepts for vastly different taxonomic groups in one system and accommodates varying phylogenic or taxonomic views. The system determines the applicability of characters to the species in question at every step of the identification process dynamically adding the more specific characters and removing the more general ones as the choice of possible species is being narrowed. Although the system may be used independently, in this project Symbiota will be integrated into the Southwest Environmental Information Network (SEINet: http://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/index.php), a mature biodiversity information center for the Southwestern US and Northern Mexico. The SEIN collection records provide a wealth of locality information as well as specific taxonomic information that can be used to generate user selected lists of species such as a list of all conifer species within a state park. These lists can be used with Symbiota to dynamically construct an identification key to those species excluding plant species not in the park as well as including only the characteristics for plants which actually appear in the park. Therefore, the system has the enormous potential to be as comprehensive as the professional taxonomist expects it to be or as simple as a primary school student needs it to be when being introduced to the plant species on the school grounds.

亚利桑那州立大学已获得赠款，以开发针对动植物的基于计算机的识别系统。该系统名为Symbiota，将引入改进的数据模型和高效的计算机程序，以加快标识过程。基于层次组织的数据，将特征的描述与分类学等级联系起来，该系统动态地构建了任何用户确定的感兴趣物种组合的识别键。 Symbiota中继承和面向对象的原则的实施大大减少了数据输入工作，处理一个系统中截然不同的分类学组的物种概念，并适应了不同的系统发育或分类观点。该系统在识别过程的每个步骤中都会确定字符对所讨论的物种的适用性，并动态添加更具体的字符，并随着可能的物种的选择被缩小而删除越多的字符。尽管该系统可以独立使用，但在此项目中，Symbiota将集成到西南环境信息网络（SEINET：http：//swbiodiversity.org/seinet/index.php），这是美国西南部美国和墨西哥西南部的成熟生物多样性信息中心。 SEIN收集记录提供了大量当地信息以及特定的分类信息，这些信息可用于生成用户选择的物种清单，例如州立公园内所有针叶树的清单。这些列表可与Symbiota一起使用，以动态构建一个识别键，该物种不包括公园中不在公园中的植物物种，以及仅包括实际出现在公园中的植物的特征。因此，该系统具有巨大的潜力，可以像专业分类学家所期望的那样全面，或者在小学生在学校理由上引入植物物种时所需的范围很简单。