BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION SYSTEMS USINGGEOREFERENCING AND PHYSICAL IDENTIFICATION

Tiago LiraFaculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto Portugal

tiagolirapgmailcom

Cristina Ribeiro Joao Correia LopesDEI mdash Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto INESC Porto Portugal

mcrjlopesfeuppt

Keywords Biodiversity informatics Web applications georeferencing physical object identification data standards

Abstract Biodiversity information can be found in diverse information systems ranging from large technical repos-itories for research purposes to dedicated databases supporting the web presence of natural sites To dealwith individual botanical objects it is important to adopt the established scientific taxonomy Providing asatisfying experience with current interface devices is also mandatory Two problems have been addressedin this work the unique identification of the objects and the representation of their physical location Theformer has been tackled with QR code a two-dimensional barcode standard and the latter with the use of aPostgreSQLPostGIS spatial databaseThe paper describes the development and test of a Web information system integrating physical identificationand geo-referencing The application in biodiversity information management shows that low-cost state-of-the-art technologies can provide appropriate solutions even for small- and medium-sized natural sites incor-porating existing scientific information on species and contributing for a growing record of their occurrencesThe system was tested on a university garden and can be used by site maintainers visitors and researchers Thedataset collected in the site can be exported according to the Darwin Core biodiversity standard for researchpurposes

1 INTRODUCTION

The year of 2010 was declared International Year ofBiodiversity by the United Nations both as a celebra-tion and as an invitation to safeguard the variety oflife on earth1

Biodiversity informatics is gathering researchersfrom biology and from several information and com-puter science domains to handle the collection anal-ysis search and application of information regardingbiological diversity The massive amounts of data inthis field are being organized by international organi-zations (ITIS 2010 Wikispecies 2010 IPNI 2010Smithsonian Institution 2010) In the near future it isreasonable to expect that application developers willhave access to high-quality information on speciesthat they can explore at a convenient level of detail

1Introduction to the International Year of Biodiversityhttpwwwcbdint2010about

There are ongoing international initiatives pro-moting the organization of large digital botanical re-sources The Global Biodiversity Information Facil-ity (GBIF) is an example of an organization aimed atproviding an informatics infrastructure to support bio-diversity applications (GBIF 2006) The concept ofan individual as an instance of a species is presentin the Darwin Core biodiversity standard proposed byGBIF Gathering information on individuals is veryimportant when dealing with applications where therepresentation of a natural site requires the identifica-tion of specimens

Many existing biodiversity repositories tend to benarrow in scope and have very specialized informa-tion on some categories They may cover just onegenus the flora from a region or a set of endangeredspecies They are therefore not suitable for servicesaimed at lay users where it is necessary to have non-specialized descriptions of a broad range of species

In this work we focus on the management of

botanical information in natural sites The people incharge of a site want to represent the data about theirspecimens to manage their evolution and to presentthem to the public in appropriate ways We have as-sumed also as requirements the use of rigorous botan-ical data and the association of geo-referencing infor-mation to each object Currently it is hard for smalland medium-sized natural sites to get botanical in-formation covering their specimens and aimed at layusers and it is also not common for a site to contributethe data it gathers to some larger repository As a con-sequence these sites release little information abouttheir collections to visitors as promotional resourcesare expensive to maintain and they rarely share theirdata with other organizations

The proposed system provides the tools for pro-motion and scientific contribution therefore increas-ing the public interest in them The concept of in-formation systems for a natural site can be redefinedwith the application of current technologies We pro-pose the integration of geo-referencing and physicalobject identification features to improve the useful-ness of these systems This creates a new approachboth in the way they manage their specimen collec-tion and in the way they interact with site maintainersvisitors and the scientific community Our system issupported by a spatial information platform and ge-ographical data visualization applications Its contri-bution for Biodiversity Informatics research is on twomain aspects the integration of tools that contributeto a more accurate representation of specimens andthe ability to share standardized information The sys-tem is demonstrated using the capabilities of modernmobile devices to bring relevant content to the siteusers

This work explores the capabilities of informationsystems for efficient management of objects on largespaces creating a collection of geo-referenced andphysically identified elements making them search-able and making their information immediately ac-cessible While this approach can be useful inmany fields the significant dispersion of specimensin botanical collections makes them a challenging ap-plication domain

11 Contributions

The main contributions of this work arebull the evaluation of physical identification methods

in botanical collectionsbull the integration of spatial information in the

database supporting a natural sitebull the development of an information system for

small and medium-sized natural sites that offers

innovative features for object identification andgeo-referencing

bull the use of a data model for natural sites account-ing for both the botanical information and the site-specific management information

bull the use of biodiversity information standards forexporting data from a natural site

bull the instantiation of the system in a real-worldbotanical site in order to evaluate its functional-ity

2 EXISTING SYSTEMS

Biodiversity information platforms are being createdto support the storage and access to large biodiversitydatasets The systems that manage information on bi-ological specimens range from large scientific repos-itories used in research to the databases that supportthe management of natural sites to informal collec-tions of information contributed by amateurs

Large scientific repositories are supported bypowerful databases and are now focusing on the shar-ing of information between organizations A prob-lematic barrier is found in taxonomic differences anddata model inconsistencies (Chavan et al 2005) forthis reason many repositories are contributing to thedefinition of standards to share and transfer their in-formation The use of spatial data is also becom-ing common as the information on the location anddistribution of specimens is valuable for research inthis field As for the services presented to usersthe research-oriented systems focus more on searchfunctions to retrieve technical information from theirdatabases there usually isnrsquot much concern about thedetails of user interaction (Neale et al 2007)

The GBIF2 network is a good example of a large-scale repository on biodiversity This internationalinitiative displays information from hundreds of or-ganizations around the world It includes data fromboth natural history collections and from observa-tional records Combining information from diversesources it uses the Darwin Core standard as a pre-ferred format for data exchange

Repositories are now giving attention to spatial in-formation registering the geographic location of thespecimens and allowing its visualization in graphicformat As an example the Ocean BiogeographicInformation System (OBIS 2010) includes in theirsearch results a distribution map for the specimens(see Figure 1)

2GBIF Infrastructure httpwwwgbiforginformaticsinfrastructure

Figure 1 Distribution map generated by the OBIS system

The systems that support the information for nat-ural sites on the other hand are usually less com-plex in their services and tend to give simple descrip-tions of the site with the intention of inviting visitorsStill some of these systems present some spatial in-formation in the form of dynamic maps of the spacegiving visitors a preview of the site Graphical pre-sentation of the information is more important hereand no great detail on the collectionrsquos specimens isrequired An example with a remarkable graphicalinterface for a virtual visit is the Monticello Explorerwebsite (Thomas Jefferson Foundation 2010) shownin Figure 2 the user can navigate the interactive mapand see an interesting description of the highlights ineach area

Figure 2 Monticello Explorerrsquos interactive map

3 AN INFORMATION SYSTEMFOR NATURAL SITES

The developed information system offers innovativefeatures for managing and publishing informationabout a botanical site The main characteristic of thissystem is the implementation of a data model capableof combining the internal information of the site thevisitor-oriented information and the scientific infor-mation in a coherent manner The approach is basedon current technologies namely geo-referencing andphysical identification

The Darwin Core biodiversity standard (Dar-win Core Task Group 2009) is used for exportingdatasets contributing them to the scientific commu-nity and making it easy to share information withother organizations

The proposed information system is designed forsmall and medium-sized natural sites allowing themto manage their information in an effective way It in-cludes a spatial database and a web application whichpresents information on botanical specimens

31 Specimen and Species Information

A major goal in this work is to supply useful descrip-tive information to visitors and site workers Theycan view information pages used to display the datarelated to the specimens These pages can be accessedfrom the various services of the system An individualpage focuses on a specific specimen or set of speci-mens and includes its description photographs gen-eral information about the corresponding species andits taxonomic classification Figure 3 gives an exam-ple of one of these pages where species informationuses the scientific descriptors in Latin

Figure 3 Information page for an oak tree

32 Spatial Services

This work explored the geo-referencing of the sitespecimens allowing the user to find the physical posi-tion of any specimen This information can be easily

inserted and corrected by the site staff and some fea-tures were developed based on this information

The main spatial feature is the virtual tour mapwhere the user can view a dynamic map of the sitewith specimens represented by markers and specimensets by polygons Clicking in these markers the userwill have basic information in popup windows or goto the full information page of the specimen Thisfeature also includes the suggestion of tour paths (seeFigure 4) formed by sequences of interesting pointschosen by the site staff

Figure 4 A suggested tour path

A more demanding use of the spatial database ca-pabilities is the geographic search feature Here theuser selects a polygon in the map which results ina spatial query that returns the elements contained orintersected by that polygon (see Figure 5)

Figure 5 Geographic search

These features are the more obvious examples ofthe potential of spatial data for natural sites Otherservices might be developed depending on the scopeand needs of an individual site

33 Physical Identification and MobileServices

Physical identification allows a user to see a speci-men and access its information (and even update it)on site The QR code (Denso Wave 2010) a two-dimensional barcode standard was chosen for thispurpose because it can be read by most mobile de-vices with standard software Any user with a com-mon cell phone equipped with a camera and basic In-ternet access can use this service

For visitors the local tour assistant feature is sup-ported by this technology The user identifies thespecimen with his mobile phone (see Figure 6) andthe device connects to the corresponding informationpage in the Web application This supplies casual vis-itors and researchers with relevant information duringtheir visit to the site instead of having to search forit later For the site staff there are other uses for thistechnology They can edit the specimenrsquos informationwhen they are working register operations they didor upload photos of the specimen all from their mo-bile phones and using the identification codes Thisability to easily identify a specimen and access its re-lated contents creates a richer interaction with the sys-tem making it more useful The code tags are gener-ated automatically using an external API ready to beprinted (Google 2010b)

Figure 6 Identification using a QR code

To offer these features the Web application mustbe suited for mobile devices There are several op-tions to solve this problem (Ekris and Vugt 2010Mehta 2008 Harris 2008) In this case as all theservices are intended to work in the mobile versionas well a separate stylesheet was created to formatthe pages according to the specification of mobile de-vice screens The system detects the kind of devicebeing used either by the browser properties or thescreen size and selects the correct stylesheet This

directs the user to the services in his mobile browser(see Figure 7) The support of the different featuresdepends on the specifications of each device whilethe basic features like information pages can be usedeven in low-end mobile phones the more resource-consuming features like the dynamic map will re-quire more powerful devices to work correctly (cur-rent smartphones should be able to use all the featuresin the mobile version)

Figure 7 Mobile version of the Web application

Mobile technologies are constantly evolving andits use will predictably continue to grow in the nearfuture (Kendrick 2010) The combination of mo-bile technologies with QR codes makes informationin large open spaces easily available to visitors

34 Scientific Information

While the above features are sufficient for casual vis-itors researchers have a need for more formal andorganized information The support for the DarwinCore biodiversity standard allows the site to export itsdatasets in a format that can be read by other orga-nizations thus making it possible to contribute to theongoing efforts on botanical repositories Researcherscan download the sitersquos data in the specified formateither for research or for integration in larger reposi-tories

When the user requests the data for a selectedspecimen the system provides an XML file with therelevant terms of the Darwin Core description3 Thisincludes specimen identification details on its geo-graphic location the scientific name of the speciesand its taxonomic classification (see Figure 8)

3Darwin Core XML Guide httprstdwgorgdwctermsguidesxmlindexhtm

Figure 8 Excerpt from the Darwin Core description of aspecimen

35 Search and Additional Features

To fulfill the needs of the system some additionalfeatures were implemented including various searchoptions Apart from the above mentioned geo-graphic search the user can search by names (speci-men description common and scientific names of thespecies) and attributes (the user selects one or morecharacteristics from the available options and the sys-tem retrieves the specimens that verify them) Basicuser-related features were also implemented includ-ing authentication access control and user manage-ment to achieve a complete application that can beput to real use

4 ARCHITECTURE

The system is implemented as a web application de-veloped in the PHP language and using the ZendFramework Zend is a flexible framework that fea-tures the Model-View-Controller design pattern andan extensive library of classes Its use leads to thecreation of a solution with good portability meaningthat it can be easily adapted to any natural site requir-ing only a suitable web server and little configurationFrom the available choices the Zend Framework wasselected for its flexibility of use and good documenta-tion (Lapsha 2008)

The data model for natural sites comes from thework of Joao Silva (Silva 2009) and was refined tobetter suit the current needs As shown on Figure 9it can be divided into 4 main parts the Park pack-age includes classes related to the site and its usersthe Identification package focuses in the data aboutspecimens the Taxonomy package deals with classi-fication and species information and the Geographypackage holds the spatial data

The spatial database is based on this model ThePostgreSQLPostGIS technology is used for support-ing the geographical information PostgreSQL is an

inserted and corrected by the site staff and some fea-tures were developed based on this information

The main spatial feature is the virtual tour mapwhere the user can view a dynamic map of the sitewith specimens represented by markers and specimensets by polygons Clicking in these markers the userwill have basic information in popup windows or goto the full information page of the specimen Thisfeature also includes the suggestion of tour paths (seeFigure 4) formed by sequences of interesting pointschosen by the site staff

Figure 4 A suggested tour path

A more demanding use of the spatial database ca-pabilities is the geographic search feature Here theuser selects a polygon in the map which results ina spatial query that returns the elements contained orintersected by that polygon (see Figure 5)

Figure 5 Geographic search

These features are the more obvious examples ofthe potential of spatial data for natural sites Otherservices might be developed depending on the scopeand needs of an individual site

33 Physical Identification and MobileServices

Physical identification allows a user to see a speci-men and access its information (and even update it)on site The QR code (Denso Wave 2010) a two-dimensional barcode standard was chosen for thispurpose because it can be read by most mobile de-vices with standard software Any user with a com-mon cell phone equipped with a camera and basic In-ternet access can use this service

For visitors the local tour assistant feature is sup-ported by this technology The user identifies thespecimen with his mobile phone (see Figure 6) andthe device connects to the corresponding informationpage in the Web application This supplies casual vis-itors and researchers with relevant information duringtheir visit to the site instead of having to search forit later For the site staff there are other uses for thistechnology They can edit the specimenrsquos informationwhen they are working register operations they didor upload photos of the specimen all from their mo-bile phones and using the identification codes Thisability to easily identify a specimen and access its re-lated contents creates a richer interaction with the sys-tem making it more useful The code tags are gener-ated automatically using an external API ready to beprinted (Google 2010b)

Figure 6 Identification using a QR code

To offer these features the Web application mustbe suited for mobile devices There are several op-tions to solve this problem (Ekris and Vugt 2010Mehta 2008 Harris 2008) In this case as all theservices are intended to work in the mobile versionas well a separate stylesheet was created to formatthe pages according to the specification of mobile de-vice screens The system detects the kind of devicebeing used either by the browser properties or thescreen size and selects the correct stylesheet This

directs the user to the services in his mobile browser(see Figure 7) The support of the different featuresdepends on the specifications of each device whilethe basic features like information pages can be usedeven in low-end mobile phones the more resource-consuming features like the dynamic map will re-quire more powerful devices to work correctly (cur-rent smartphones should be able to use all the featuresin the mobile version)

Figure 7 Mobile version of the Web application

Mobile technologies are constantly evolving andits use will predictably continue to grow in the nearfuture (Kendrick 2010) The combination of mo-bile technologies with QR codes makes informationin large open spaces easily available to visitors

34 Scientific Information

While the above features are sufficient for casual vis-itors researchers have a need for more formal andorganized information The support for the DarwinCore biodiversity standard allows the site to export itsdatasets in a format that can be read by other orga-nizations thus making it possible to contribute to theongoing efforts on botanical repositories Researcherscan download the sitersquos data in the specified formateither for research or for integration in larger reposi-tories

When the user requests the data for a selectedspecimen the system provides an XML file with therelevant terms of the Darwin Core description3 Thisincludes specimen identification details on its geo-graphic location the scientific name of the speciesand its taxonomic classification (see Figure 8)

3Darwin Core XML Guide httprstdwgorgdwctermsguidesxmlindexhtm

Figure 8 Excerpt from the Darwin Core description of aspecimen

35 Search and Additional Features

To fulfill the needs of the system some additionalfeatures were implemented including various searchoptions Apart from the above mentioned geo-graphic search the user can search by names (speci-men description common and scientific names of thespecies) and attributes (the user selects one or morecharacteristics from the available options and the sys-tem retrieves the specimens that verify them) Basicuser-related features were also implemented includ-ing authentication access control and user manage-ment to achieve a complete application that can beput to real use

4 ARCHITECTURE

The system is implemented as a web application de-veloped in the PHP language and using the ZendFramework Zend is a flexible framework that fea-tures the Model-View-Controller design pattern andan extensive library of classes Its use leads to thecreation of a solution with good portability meaningthat it can be easily adapted to any natural site requir-ing only a suitable web server and little configurationFrom the available choices the Zend Framework wasselected for its flexibility of use and good documenta-tion (Lapsha 2008)

The data model for natural sites comes from thework of Joao Silva (Silva 2009) and was refined tobetter suit the current needs As shown on Figure 9it can be divided into 4 main parts the Park pack-age includes classes related to the site and its usersthe Identification package focuses in the data aboutspecimens the Taxonomy package deals with classi-fication and species information and the Geographypackage holds the spatial data

The spatial database is based on this model ThePostgreSQLPostGIS technology is used for support-ing the geographical information PostgreSQL is an

directs the user to the services in his mobile browser(see Figure 7) The support of the different featuresdepends on the specifications of each device whilethe basic features like information pages can be usedeven in low-end mobile phones the more resource-consuming features like the dynamic map will re-quire more powerful devices to work correctly (cur-rent smartphones should be able to use all the featuresin the mobile version)

Figure 7 Mobile version of the Web application

Mobile technologies are constantly evolving andits use will predictably continue to grow in the nearfuture (Kendrick 2010) The combination of mo-bile technologies with QR codes makes informationin large open spaces easily available to visitors

34 Scientific Information

While the above features are sufficient for casual vis-itors researchers have a need for more formal andorganized information The support for the DarwinCore biodiversity standard allows the site to export itsdatasets in a format that can be read by other orga-nizations thus making it possible to contribute to theongoing efforts on botanical repositories Researcherscan download the sitersquos data in the specified formateither for research or for integration in larger reposi-tories

When the user requests the data for a selectedspecimen the system provides an XML file with therelevant terms of the Darwin Core description3 Thisincludes specimen identification details on its geo-graphic location the scientific name of the speciesand its taxonomic classification (see Figure 8)

3Darwin Core XML Guide httprstdwgorgdwctermsguidesxmlindexhtm

Figure 8 Excerpt from the Darwin Core description of aspecimen

35 Search and Additional Features

To fulfill the needs of the system some additionalfeatures were implemented including various searchoptions Apart from the above mentioned geo-graphic search the user can search by names (speci-men description common and scientific names of thespecies) and attributes (the user selects one or morecharacteristics from the available options and the sys-tem retrieves the specimens that verify them) Basicuser-related features were also implemented includ-ing authentication access control and user manage-ment to achieve a complete application that can beput to real use

4 ARCHITECTURE

The system is implemented as a web application de-veloped in the PHP language and using the ZendFramework Zend is a flexible framework that fea-tures the Model-View-Controller design pattern andan extensive library of classes Its use leads to thecreation of a solution with good portability meaningthat it can be easily adapted to any natural site requir-ing only a suitable web server and little configurationFrom the available choices the Zend Framework wasselected for its flexibility of use and good documenta-tion (Lapsha 2008)

The data model for natural sites comes from thework of Joao Silva (Silva 2009) and was refined tobetter suit the current needs As shown on Figure 9it can be divided into 4 main parts the Park pack-age includes classes related to the site and its usersthe Identification package focuses in the data aboutspecimens the Taxonomy package deals with classi-fication and species information and the Geographypackage holds the spatial data

The spatial database is based on this model ThePostgreSQLPostGIS technology is used for support-ing the geographical information PostgreSQL is an

Figure 9 Package diagram of the data model structure

open-source database system renowned for its relia-bility stability and scalability PostGIS (Obe and Hsu2010 PostGIS 2010) its spatial extension is a solu-tion for storing and managing geographic data certi-fied by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

Geographical information visualization using aJavaScript-based dynamic map uses the GoogleMaps service (Google 2010a) Its combination withthe spatial database provides geo-referencing mak-ing it possible to insert and visualize the specimenrsquosphysical location in an intuitive way and allowingfor other operations like the spatial search featureThe required spatial calculations are accomplished byPostGIS functions (BostonGIS 2010) making use ofthe capabilities of the database the results are re-turned as text coordinates to be used for visualizationin the dynamic map

As an identification method the system uses thepreviously mentioned QR code There are variousalternatives for specimen identification RFID tags(Smith and Konsynski 2003 Want et al 1999) canbe an effective solution but require costly equipmentand would be usable only by the park maintainersThe barcode system on the other hand is inexpensiveand readable on most mobile phones4 extending theservice to the visitors of the natural site The QR code

4QR-Code Readers httpwwwmobile-barcodescomqr-code-software

standard was compared to other barcode types andchosen for its efficiency and for being supported inthe majority of mobile devices (Kato and Tan 2005Susono and Shimomura 2006)

5 DATA COLLECTION

A practical aspect which has required some con-cern was how to populate the database with accuratespecies information Users should not be forced tocreate information such as species taxonomies whichare well established in the scientific community oreven generic descriptors such as specimen size orshape which are typically already described else-where We have collected general data on taxonomyand species descriptions that can be applied to anynatural site A case study was used to test the systemon a real garden

51 Species and Taxonomic Information

After contacting various organizations the IllinoisPlant Information Network (Iverson et al 1999) al-lowed the use of their data which included commonand scientific names and various descriptive botani-cal information on plant species The data was dis-tributed on thousands of text files with organized for-matting but somewhat variable content A small Javaapplication was developed to extract the informationand prepare it for insertion in the database Data wasobtained for more than 3000 natural species

The taxonomic information for the Plantae king-dom was imported from a previous work (Silva2009) With this data the system shows the taxo-nomic classification for each species in the site

All this information is associated with the plantspecies and can be used for any natural site indepen-dently from its specimens While not all the specieshave a description many are covered by the collecteddata and others can be completed manually

52 Case Study

The system was applied to one of the university gar-dens which is in the process of expanding its speci-men collection The garden has several species and islarge enough to take advantage of the developed ser-vices

This deployment of the system allowed us to testits features in a real situation For that purpose datawas collected on various specimens of the garden in-cluding descriptions and photographs which were as-sociated to the corresponding species Some of the

species were not in the system yet and were insertedwith data from various sources (Fernandes and Car-valho 2003) The geographical coordinates were col-lected for each specimen using a GPS device Asthe device presented significant precision errors partof the data was corrected using the applicationrsquos dy-namic map The collected spatial data was tested inthe virtual tour service visiting the specimens for thefrontal area of the garden (as shown on Figure 10)Identification codes were also printed for some of thespecimens allowing us to test the local tour assistantand related mobile Web contents

Figure 10 Virtual tour of FEUPrsquos gardens

6 EVALUATION

The goal of this work was not only the creation of asolution but also an evaluation of the applicability ofthe selected technologies in this domain

Physical identification proved to be an effectiveservice when associated with mobile device contentsThe QR codes in particular can be easily generatedand printed and the tests suggest that most commonmobile phones can use them With the evolution ofmobile Internet and devices this service is expectedto become even more practical in the future

The geo-referencing of specimens is a useful fea-ture both for visitors and for site workers and spatialdata can also be important for research purposes Thevalue of this data increases for larger spaces wherethe difficulty of locating a specimen is much more sig-nificant

Exporting data in Darwin Core format is relevantfor specialized users and can be valuable for researchpurposes The usefulness of the data will depend onits content the amount of information collected andthe interest of the species in the collection Neverthe-less the system allows for easy sharing of the data in

a standardized format supported by large global orga-nizations

The success of any system is of course dependenton the reaction of its users therefore a more detailedevaluation with different user groups would be usefulto better assess its practical value A group of users inthe fields of Biology and Botany would be speciallyrelevant to test the developed features and identifypossible points for improvement The virtual tour andthe local tour assistant features should be tested withvisitors

7 CONCLUSIONS

Biodiversity information systems are evolving in thedirection of spatial information The Darwin Corestandard is also becoming more common in the shar-ing of scientific data Information systems for naturalsites are starting to use new technologies and there arestill vast opportunities for improvement

The work explores two technologies for naturalsites Physical identification of specimens suppliesvisitors with relevant content in an easy way andimproves the efficiency of information managementtasks for the staff Geo-referencing allows the collec-tion and storage of precise information on the local-ization of the specimens which can then be visualizedby the users The support of the Darwin Core standardenables the site to share datasets with the scientificcommunity

This work has resulted in a Web informationsystem focused on improving specimen informationmanagement and offering distinct services for visi-tors with the support of current technologies Thesystem is flexible and can be applied to botanical gar-dens and other natural sites Hopefully the result willhave an impact on biodiversity information systemsThese technologies can improve the services of nat-ural sites and their use in this context can be furtherexplored

The broad scope of the study also creates opportu-nities for continuation expanding the work for differ-ent uses and related areas One possibility is to con-nect the application to a biodiversity repository (someof which already provide APIs for data retrieval)to get relevant information on species or taxonomywhenever necessary The application might also up-load its data periodically to the repository making itavailable for research Another possibility is to ex-pand the system to the animal kingdom for examplein a small zoo with some modifications on the iden-tification and geo-referencing methods The spatialcapabilities of the database can be further explored as

well global maps may show the origin of the collec-tionrsquos species or the retrieval place of the specimensAdditionally the increasingly common GPS capabil-ities of mobile phones can be used in a location-oriented tour assistant that will point interesting el-ements near the userrsquos position or help the staff togeo-reference a specimen using the coordinates of thedevice

REFERENCES

BostonGIS (2010) Part 1 Getting started withPostGIS Available at httpwwwbostongiscomcontent_name=postgis_tut01 last accessedSeptember 2010

Chavan V Rane N Watve A and Ruggiero M (2005)Resolving taxonomic discrepancies role of electroniccatalogues of known organisms Biodiversity Infor-matics 270ndash78

Darwin Core Task Group (2009) Darwin Core Avail-able at httprstdwgorgdwcindexhtm lastaccessed July 2010

Denso Wave (2010) QRcodecom Available at httpwwwdenso-wavecomqrcodeindex-ehtml lastaccessed July 2010

Ekris J and Vugt R (2010) Optimizing a websitefor mobile devices mdash modern nomads Availableat httpmodernnomadsinfowikiindexphppage=Optimizing20a20website20for20mobile20devices last accessed July 2010

Fernandes M F and Carvalho L M (2003) PortugalBotanico de A a Z mdash Plantas Portuguesas e ExoticasLidel 3 edition

GBIF (2006) GBIF strategic and operational plans2007-2011 Available at httpwwwgbiforgstrategic_planspdf last accessed September2010

Google (2010a) The Google Maps JavaScript API Avail-able at httpcodegooglecomapismapsdocumentationjavascript last accessed July2010

Google (2010b) QR-codes mdash Google chart tools Availableat httpcodegooglecomapischartdocsgalleryqr_codeshtml last accessed July 2010

Harris S (2008) Mobilising a websitepart 2 Strategies Available at httppointbeingnetweblog200807mobilising-a-website-part-2-strategieshtml last accessed September 2010

IPNI (2010) The international plant names index Availableat httpwwwipniorg last accessed September2010

ITIS (2010) Integrated taxonomic information systemAvailable at httpwwwitisgov last accessedSeptember 2010

Iverson L Ketzner D and Karnes J (1999) Illinois plantinformation network Available at httpwwwfsfedusnedelawareilpinilpinhtml last ac-cessed September 2010

Kato H and Tan K T (2005) 2D barcodes for mobilephones In Proceedings of the 2nd International Con-ference on Mobile Technology Applications and Sys-tems (Mobility 2005) Nov 15-17 2005 GuangzhouChina

Kendrick J (2010) The (R)evolution of mobileAvailable at httpjkontheruncom20100401the-revolution-of-mobile last accessedSeptember 2010

Lapsha S (2008) Zend framework vs CakePHP symfonyseagull WACT prado TRAX eZ and CodeIgniterAvailable at httpsevalapshawordpresscom20071113 last accessed July 2010

Mehta N (2008) Chapter 4 mdash adapting to user devices InMobile Web Development pages 20ndash28 Packt Pub-lishing

Neale S H Pullan M R and Watson M F (2007) On-line biodiversity resources mdash principles for usabilityBiodiversity Informatics 4(0)

Obe R O and Hsu L S (2010) PostGIS in Action Man-ning Publications Co

OBIS (2010) Ocean biogeographic information systemmdashabout the data Available at httpwwwiobisorgtech last accessed July 2010

PostGIS (2010) PostGIS Documentation Avail-able at httppostgisrefractionsnetdocumentation last accessed July 2010

Silva J (2009) Sharing botanical information usinggeospatial databases Masterrsquos thesis Faculdade deEngenharia da Universidade do Porto

Smith H and Konsynski B (2003) Developments in prac-tice X Radio frequency identification (RFID) ndash an in-ternet for physical objects Communications of theAIS 12(19)301ndash310

Smithsonian Institution (2010) Index nominum generico-rum (ING) Available at httpbotanysieduing last accessed September 2010

Susono H and Shimomura T (2006) Using mobilephones and QR codes for formative class assessmentProceeding of Current Developments pages 1006ndash1009

Thomas Jefferson Foundation (2010) Monticello explorerAvailable at httpexplorermonticelloorglast accessed July 2010

Want R Fishkin K P Gujar A and Harrison B L(1999) Bridging physical and virtual worlds withelectronic tags In Proceedings of the SIGCHI con-ference on Human factors in computing systems theCHI is the limit pages 370ndash377

Wikispecies (2010) Wikispecies free species directoryAvailable at httpspecieswikimediaorgwikiMain_Page last accessed September 2010

well global maps may show the origin of the collec-tionrsquos species or the retrieval place of the specimensAdditionally the increasingly common GPS capabil-ities of mobile phones can be used in a location-oriented tour assistant that will point interesting el-ements near the userrsquos position or help the staff togeo-reference a specimen using the coordinates of thedevice

REFERENCES

BostonGIS (2010) Part 1 Getting started withPostGIS Available at httpwwwbostongiscomcontent_name=postgis_tut01 last accessedSeptember 2010

Chavan V Rane N Watve A and Ruggiero M (2005)Resolving taxonomic discrepancies role of electroniccatalogues of known organisms Biodiversity Infor-matics 270ndash78

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