A.S.CHUNAEV. HyperCard stacks of Peterhof genetic Chlamydomonas culture collection.
Chlamydomonas strains comprise major part of Peterhof genetic microalgae culture collection (PGC). Two HyperCard stacks have been made from scratch: 1) strain catalog and 2) catalog of performed crosses. Picture and symbol elements have been designed in order to show culture transfers, crosses, and various treatments of cell cultures. Arrangements of these elements into genealogical schemes enable to follow the history of individual strains up to the wild-type isolates from the nature. HyperCard stacks form the core of the software about PGC Chlamydomonas strain collection, because HyperCard program can open desired documents (drawings of genetics maps and bibliographic databases) with other applications without leaving HyperCard. Other HyperCard properties used to create these stacks include: custom PGC pull-down menu which facilitates navigating between stacks, and Cyrillic font in text fields (in addition to default text font) which show original Cyrillic designations for some widely applied strains originating from PGC, and the Cyrillic names of the strain authors (for correct references). Special stack has been designed for demonstration of color images of Chlamydomonas pigment mutant cultures (as PICT files). Images were captured by digital camera AGFA ePhoto 1680 and transferred to Power Macintosh G3 computer by AGFA PhotoWise application..
Department of Genetics and Breeding, St. Petersburg State University, University Embankment 7/9,. St. Peterburg, V-34, 199034, Russia. e-mail: cas@cas.usr.pu.ru
V. P. DEDKOV, M.G. NAPREENKO, A.A. SOKOLOV, D.E. PETRENKO. Floristic databases in the herbarium of the Kaliningrad State University: outlooks of development.
A considerable material on the flora of the Kaliningrad region and the adjacent areas has been collected since 1964 up to present time in the herbarium of the Kaliningrad University. The main part of this collection are vascular plants and mosses. During last years the herbarium has been appreciably enriched by lichen patterns. It takes, in this connection, a systematization of the information accumulated into a compact computer database convenient for use. The inventory of the herbarium patterns has been launched at present as well as the creation of the database on the rare species in the Kaliningrad region. All the available information from the herbarium labels is being taken into account in the database which is under construction in the Microsoft Access programme. The species distribution is given according to the administrative division of the Kaliningrad region, for the rare species - on the base of special square net conjugated with the meridional system.Working out the united database on the flora of the Kaliningrad region (incl. mosses, lichens and mushrooms) is planned.
Kaliningrad State University Universitetskaya, 2 Kaliningrad, 236040, Russia
V.K.GOLUBEV, D.V.LISITSYN, O.A.LEBEDEV, AND A.M.KUZNETSOV. "Paleodata", a palaeontological database developed in the palaeontological institute of the RAS.
Active works on the creation of an extensive palaeontological information system
"Paleodata" are currently in progress in the Palaeontological Institute of the RAS. The main purpose of the
"Paleodata" system is to provide original palaeontological information for the user to analyze it himself. For the achievement of this purpose three basic tasks are to be solved: 1) creation and constant updating of file on
palaeontology, 2) organization of fast access to it and 3) presentation of required information in a format convenient for its further processing by the user.
It is the information on the fossil specimen itself which is accepted to be the base of all further palaeontological constructions and conclusions. This information, being primary, is most objective. For this reason the
"Paleodata" concept is based upon data on fossil specimens (the specimen is considered to be a set of fossil remains belonging to a single organism). The block "Collections" is a core of
"Paleodata", it includes objective data (geographical and stratigraphic position, information on the authors and collection dates, places of storage etc.), as well as experts opinions, both published and unpublished (systematic position, categories of types, bibliographic references). Practically all other blocks of the DB
("Systematics", "Localities", "Stratigraphy", "Bibliography",
"Personalia", "Institutions") work as reference for the "Collection" block and contain various additional information on the specimens. However, data stored in the specified blocks may be of independent value for many researchers. Therefore information only indirectly connected to the main block will be placed here too.
Ideally "Paleodata" should contain information on palaeontological collections of the whole world. It is obvious, that this purpose is practically unattainable. Therefore the section
"Paleobiogeography" including general information on where, when and what kind of organisms lived, is included in
"Paleodata", though this block is superfluous for high-grade collection database being an overlap area of the blocks "Collection", "Localities",
"Systematics" and "Stratigraphy".
The information system "Paleodata" is constructed by principle of open architecture: it supposes an opportunity of addition of new blocks as well as expansion of structure of already available ones for the needs of individual users.
Storage and access to palaeontological data using Internet-technologies are suggested to be realized in the
"Paleodata" Internet version. This slightly reduced version should present information in Russian and English both. Three blocks of information system: "Bibliography",
"Personalia" and "Institutions" are already functioning. They are available at
http://www.paleo.ru/paleodata/.
Palaeontological Institute of the RAS, Profsoyuznaya, 123 Moscow, 117997, Russia.
email: paleodata@paleo.ru, vg@paleo.ru,
dvlis@mail.ru, olebed@paleo.ru
I.A.KHRAPALOVA. The database of mutant-genetical tomato collection of WIR.
In State Scientific Centre - Institute of Plant Industry named after N.I.Vavilov (WIR) on the base of genus Lycopersicon(Tourn.)Mill. collection (more than 7000 examples) is creating mutant-genetical collection of tomato examples with identificated genes. The database of this collection includes passport dates and phenogenetic characters. In the mutant-genetic collection are 400 examples with 106 identificated genes. The database includes authors descriptions of mutant forms, initial documents about examples and phenogenetics dates of these examples testing in greenhouses of Pushkin Laboratories of WIR. The majority of this collection examples are forms corroborated gomology, polymorphism, parallelism of characters of plants according to Vavilov's Law of homological rows in hereditary variability. There are mutants with different genes controlled of plants habitus; with presence or absence of anthocyan; with different forms, color and deformations of leaf; with shortened internodes; with different types of lateral shoots, different forms and sizes of calyx, different color of flowers, with different wooly parts of plants, different types of inflorescences, different colors of fruits and their quality, with different periods of fruit storage; different parthenocarpy and immunity. Database of tomato mutant collection (WIR) is forming and isn't in Internet. State Scientific Centre of RF
All-Russian Institute of Plant Industry named after N.I.Vavilov, 190000, St.-Petersburg, Bolshaya Morskaya str., 44, Department of vegetable crops. email: flair@spb.cityline.ru or vir@glas.apc.org; tel.: (812) 314-2234; (812) 314-4918; (812) 476-3291.
J.F. LOPEZ-GIRALDEZ1, E. GARCIA-FRANQUESA2, J. MARMI1 & X.
DOMINGO-ROURA1,3. Optimising collections and databases for molecular biology.
Since the XVIII century natural history collections have been used in a wide range of scientific fields, such as morphology, anatomy, geographic distribution, evolution and ecology. In recent years, zoological specimens of public and private collections have been advantageously used for molecular biology studies. DNA extraction has been achieved from diverse samples, such as bones, formalin-fixed specimens, paraffin-embedded tissues, solid tissues soaked in alcohol, study skins, mounted animals, sheds, fish scales and otholiths, faeces, hair, feathers, dried insects and frozen carcasses. Frozen and ethanol-preserved tissues from museums have already been widely used in many applications that include taxonomic classification, detection of endemisms, species-identification and forensic studies both in extant and extinct species. However, in order to achieve the full potential of collections for molecular biology studies, simple protocols to specimens that would help to preserve the presence and structure of nucleic acids for the future should be known and applied. Collection databases should include information on geographic origin of the sample, year of collection, tissues available and treatments and preservatives that have been applied to the samples. These procedures will enhance the role of museums in research and education, constituting a basic resource for the progress of molecular scientific knowledge, and avoiding new and unnecessary extractions from nature that would compromise animal conservation.
1Unitat de Biologia Evolutiva, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr. Aiguader 80, 08003 Barcelona, Spain, Phone + 34935422843, Fax +34935422802, E-mail francesc.lopez@cexs.upf.es, josep.marmi@cexs.upf.es, xavier.domingo@cexs.upf.es;
2Museu de Zoologia de Barcelona, Passeig Picasso s/n, 08003 Barcelona, Spain, Phone +34933196912, Fax +34933104999, E-mail mzbcol@intercom.es;
3Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, U.K.
O. M. MASLOVSKY, E.N. YAROCHEVICH, P.A. RODIONOV. Registration and mapping of botanical collections of Europe with using of computer system "Herbarium".
Modern stage of development of botanical collections determines the concrete demands to registration of botanical collections, its mapping and accordingly to computer informational systems in this field. For registration and mapping of botanical collections of Europe we created a special computer system "Herbarium". This system is a specific continue of informational system Flora, which is adapted for concrete demands of this work. Main structure of the system Herbarium includes 3 blocks: data base (herbarium label and taxonomy of specimen, it's general and detail photos, photo of habitat); mapping block (European, country and regional maps); analytic block (imputing, choose and reflection of information, printing, and analysis). System interface adapted for maximal comfort work. System has a potential possibilities of development and improving. This is connect firstly with improving of mapping block, extension of specter of solving botanical tasks and individual adaptation of the system. It may be added of prepared map set of different regions (including topographic and specific), and also reference block. We hope, that wide using of this system will get possibilities for standard of registration of European botanical collections, for facilitated informational exchange and will be as base for realization of pan-European projects for protection of biodiversity of continent.
Institute of Experimental Botany of Belarus National Academy of Sciences, 220733, Minsk, Akademycheskaja str., 27. Phone: +375 (172) 842015. Fax: +375 (172) 2684853.
email: oleg@biobel.bas-net.by
A.A. NIKOL'SKII1, E.N. PANOV2 & A.S. ROUBTSOV1. The electronic collection of animals acoustic signals.
The project is directed on creation of the electronic collection of animals sounds and the information search system accessible for a wide range of biologists and other users categories. During the almost forty years we and our colleagues have been forming the unique collection of sound signals of vertebrates on magnetic tapes. The collection contains sounds of more than 500 species gathered from the all extensive territory of the former USSR. A few tens of species are presented here by numerous series and large variety of communicative signals. On the base of this collection some basic researches in field of systematic, ethology, ecology and evolution theory. However in the course of time magnetic tape completely loses the properties, so there is a danger of irrevocable loss of these valuable materials. Besides the collection is accessible now to very limited range of persons only. The modern computer and telecommunication technologies allow to save a unique collection and to make it more accessible. We plan: 1) to make the digital version of the collection on CD; 2) to give the copies of recordings on CD in State Darwin museum; 3) to make a computer database accessible to the broad range of experts (with use of Internet technology); 4) to make an electronic map for demonstration of geographical aspects of the collection.
1State Darwin museum, Vavilova 57, Moscow, 117292, Russia; 2A.N.Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Leninskii prospect 33, Moscow, 117071, Russia.
T.A.OSTROUMOVA. Digital images of Asiatic Umbelliferae.
We made digital images of more than 200 herbarium specimens of Asiatic species of the Umbelliferae family. We used the scanner PlustekA3I OpticPro, resolution 100 dpi for whole herbarium sheet and400 dpi for small details. Index was creates in HTML. Size of*.jpg files is 500-1100KB. RFBR grant98-04-49264. "Universities of Russia" grant 990552
Botanical Garden, Moscow StateUniversity, Moscow 119899, Russia. Tel. (7-095)9393471. Fax(7-095)9392450. email ostroum@2.botgard.bio.msu.ru
A.A.PROKHOROV & M.I.NESTERENKO. Registration of collections of botanical gardens and herbariums with the help of "Calypso 4.5x".
The English and Russian versions. "Calypso" is a program permitting to create and to edit records about plants, contained in collections of botanical gardens and herbariums. In the present moment "Calypso" is maintained in ours garden, and also the "Calypso" versions 4.0 - 4.52 are used in 30 botanical gardens of Russia and Ukraine. "Calypso" is a database management system supported International transfer format for botanic records. The base "Calypso" can be partitioned, to work with them on different computers, and after to merge in a single unit. "Calypso" reads text files containing checklists - i.e. allows to pass from the first stage of a computerization of collections - list of plants - to the valuable database. In "Calypso" the eligibility - all subsequent generations "Calypso" is saved, read bases of the previous generation and work with them. The "Calypso" is accessible by internet http://hortus.karelia.ru/pbg/soft.htm (or soft_e.htm). In "Calypso" are realised the various methods of sorting, search of taxa and accessions. "Calypso" contains resources of check of logical structure of databases. The information can be output as 7 output forms. The recommended computer: IBM PC or is higher. The memory 8Мб, is better 16 and more. The place on the hard disk - from 10Мб and is more. The videocard should support the mode High Color at permission a minimum 640х480, it is better 600х800, for normal operation with pictures. An operating system: Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98. Supported by RFBR No: 00-07-90281.
Petrozavodsk State University, Lenina av., 33, Petrozavodsk, Karelia, Russia 185640, Tel. +7 (8142) 718405, fax +7 (8142) 711000 email: alpro@onego.ru, http://hortus.karelia.ru.
Yu.R.ROSKOV, D.V.GELTMAN, A.K.SYTIN, S.A.JEZNIAKOVSKY. Information System on the Herbarium history of Komarov Botanical Institute.
The history of the herbarium collections of the Komarov Botanical Institute in St.Petersburg (LE) numbers about three centures. This is the main Herbarium in Russia and one of the largest in the World. Computer version of its history in HTML format is being compiled by our group. At the current stage it contains 560 Mb of over 200 articles and 1500 images. The main chapters are: "Historical dates and facts", "Collectors and researchers", "Collections", "Explorings", "Art hobbies of botanists", "Herbarium dictionary". There are images of historical documents from archives of the Institute and the Russian Academy of Sciences, rare photos and unique herbarium specimens. The system is dedicated to tercentenary of St.Petersburg. In 1999-2000 the project was supported by Open Society Institute.
Komarov Botanical Institute, 2, Prof. Popov Str., 197376 St. Petersburg, Russia; Tel. +7-812-2342236, Fax +7-812-2344512, email: roskov@herb.ras.spb.ru
Yu.R.ROSKOV, M.S.NOVOSELOVA, T.V.EGOROVA. Virtual Herbarium of types for "Novitates Systematicae Plantarum Vascularium".
This annuary is a principal taxonomic edition for higher plants in Russia. 1152 new species, subspecies and varieties were published in 32 volumes. Accessorial edition with high resolution images of herbarium type specimens of these taxa is being prepared. Digital images of types will be collected in the special information system together with diagnosis and data from herbarium labels. The basic resolution of scanning is 200 dpi, middle size of images is 3300x2200 pix. Software "Virtual Herbarium for Windows" (S.Jezniakovsky & D.Voronin as authors) is being used. The project is being supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Researches (grant N 00-07-90271).
Komarov Botanical Institute, 2, Prof. Popov Str., 197376 St.Petersburg, Russia; Tel. +7-812-2342236, Fax +7-812-2344512, E-mail: roskov@herb.ras.spb.ru
Kh.P.TIRAS. Virtual biological museum of flat objects.
1.Usually, biological museums contain the collections of the fixed samples. The virtual biological museum (VBM) have avoided these problems and can solve the crucial problem of the safety of natural image of biological objects. The digital photo- and videocameras allow to create the images of living animals and plants. 2. Such a virtual collections solved the main bioethical contradiction of the biological museum: we have to save animals and plants, but simultaneously we have to kill them to make the samples. Additionally, it is possible to collect any large collection of rear animals and plants. 3. "Flat" objects. Majority of the living objects are three-dimensional, but now is technically difficult and expensive to made such a collection. So, the first step of the VBM would be the collections of so called "flat" biological objects, whose image can be adequately made by two-dimensional cameras and presented at the flat screens of our monitors. Among them are leaves of plants, wings of butterflies and flatworms. 4. The successful electronic collection of samples may be if all the members of the project follow the same rules of making the primary electronic images. The primary collection of planarians have been created at the Pushchino Centre of Bioinformatics based on SGI Origin200 server. RFP "Integracia" project В0018, RFBR, grant 01-07-97059-р2001podmoskovie_v.
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics RAS, Pushchino, Moscow region, 142290, Russia, Tel. (27) 923-74-67, Fax: (0967) 79-05-53, email: tiras@rambler.ru
Kh.P. TIRAS, D.V. ZHUKOVA & E.F. ILYASOV. Virtual biological museum of flat objects.
The objective of the Virtual biological museum (VBM), funded by the Russian Federation Programme "Integracia" and RFBR (regional program "Podmoskovie") is to create the collections of so called flat objects like flatworms - planarians. plant leaves and butterflies which could be adequately represented on two-dimensional monitor screens.VBM also resolves another fundamental problem of scientific biological museums, namely, the uniformity of conditions under which samples, are created and stored. The VBM has been developed as a part of Pushchino Scientific Centre's high performance computative cluster. Work has already begun to put together a collection of Dugesia tigrina of asexual and sexual races. In each group, 50 planarians have been measured. The images thus obtained have been used to determine morphological differences these two races of D. .tigrina.. Subject to measurement are the length and area of the whole body, the length and area of the head and the length and area of pharynx. It was revealed that the ratio between the pharynx and whole body area in the sexual race almost two time higher the in the same parameter in asexual ones. RFP "Integracia" project A0018, RFBR, grant 01-07- 97059.
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics RAS, Pushchino, Moscow region, 142290, Russia, Tel. (27) 923-74-67, Fax: (0967) 79-05-53, e-mail: tiras@rambler.ru
O.D VEPRINTSEVA, S.A. BUKREEV, G.V. DEMINA, M.V. MARININA, S.A. VASYUKOV, S.G. KIKNADZE & S.Ye. PERMYAKOV. Inventorization of the Veprintsev Phonotheca of Animal Voices collection of bioacoustic materials recorded on magnetic tapes.
The known wildlife sound recordings collection contains vocalizations of about 700 species of Eastern Palearctic avifauna, including many endemic, rare, and endangered bird species. The purposes of the work are to identify, examine, verify, supplement, and prepare detailed information related to the original field tapes and to create a computerized catalog for the collection. Documentation of the collection has been made in accordance with the international standards for archiving bioacoustic materials. The standards govern the documentation of species identification, background sounds, date, geography, biology, behavior, habitat, environment, recording techniques, as well as techniques for tape restoration and duplication, editing, and cataloging of wildlife sound recordings. The catalog is a full-text relational database that is being developed with Borland dBASE 5.0 for Windows application. It currently contains four tables and over 10000 records with over 70 fields for data entry in total. Each record describes details associated with a single sound "cut," which represents a completed specimen of vocalization of an animal or a group of animals. The catalog is available on-line at http://birds.iteb.serpukhov.su The work has been supported by the Russian Basic Research Foundation (grant #99-07-90152).
B.N.Veprintsev Phonotheca of Animal Voices, Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institutskaya 3, Pushchino, Moscow region, 142290, Russia, Tel. 7(0967)73-0482; Fax 7(0967)79-0553; email olga@birds.iteb.serpukhov.su
G.ZHELEZNOVA, M. TENTYUKOV, T. SHUBINA & M. DULIN. Development of information-search system "Herbarium of Bryophyte of the European Northern-East of Russia".
Development of information retrieval system "Herbarium of Bryophyte of the European Northern-East of Russia". Herbarium of Bryophyte of the Institute of Biology of Komi Scientific Center of Ural Division of Russian Academy of Sciences is the largest in the European Northern-East of Russia. The collection totals more than 32000 units of a storage. It constantly replenishes and is updated. With the beginning of preparation of materials for the project "Flora of Russia" there was a necessity to unify representation the material of Herbarium on electronic carriers and to ensure(supply) access of a scientific public to Herbarium of Institute of Biology. By development of information retrieval system the certain attention will be given to designing and development of structure of a database in view of newest taxonomic works and change of the nomenclature of taxons, and also development of a package of the applied programs for formation and support of the electronic catalogue of Herbarium. The program will work on IBM PC under the control of desktop ОС Windows (95/98/2000/NT), and the information is stored in a database on server. The access to it (reading - record) can be carried out with the help Web-server Apache, started on same machine (server of architecture Intel with the processor Pentium II). The direct interaction with a database is realised by the specially developed Web-appendices (system of filling of a database, system of viewing and search). The development of help reference files for simplification of filling of the documents of Herbarium (a label with description of each plant) is supposed.
Institute of Biology of Komi Scientific Center of Ural Division of Russian Academy of Sciences, Kommunisticheskaya str., 28, Syktyvkar, 167982, Komi Republic, Russia, Tel. +(81212)425012; Fax +(81212)420163; E- mail
zheleznova@ib.komisc.ru; tentyukov@ib.komisc.ru;
shubina@ib.komisc.ru, dulin@ib.komisc.ru
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Last web-page update: 3rd April 2001