THE INFORMATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT FOR PROCESSING OF ECOLOGICAL DATA OBTAINDED FROM FIELDS STUDIES

Introduction

A xylium and phytocoenosis inventory process is one of the most important scientific tasks because the results of studies provide to analyze biological diversity and perform ecological vegetation monitoring of the areas being explored [1].

The growing popularity of computer-based activities has encouraged not IT-specialists in Ecology to use a wide range of various software tools for solving their scientific fundamental and applied problems.

In the field studies of sample areas, a large amount of ecological data is constantly being accumulated. In order to provide a central data storage, it is necessary to ensure a common information space. The custom software has to have a user-friendly interface and sufficient functional capabilities for data processing and agile reporting.

Our analysis of similar information systems focused on  ecological data processing has shown that the best-known products are TurboVEG, Juice and IBIS [2-4]. The systems are intended for a phytocoenotic database usage. They also allow to significantly automate analysis and classification processes of heterogeneous plant communities.

However, the software products are not fully satisfied the user requirements. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity to modify these systems because they are proprietary or based on obsolete technologies.

Thus, the main aim of the study is to create a ecological database (DB) of sample areas while studying a landscape and an information system (IS) for its using intended for collecting, storing and processing tremendous volumes of ecological data.

Ecological Data Analysis and Database Development

Nowadays, most specialists in Vegetation Science apply a rich variety of theoretic and practical methods to perform ecological descriptions studies.

In the field investigations while studying a landscape, they fill out special forms of ecological descriptions, create documents with the results of the chemical soil analysis in Microsoft Word and take pictures of a landscape being studied.

The use of common forms provides to standardize and unify a traditional procedure of ecological description handling. The ecological data obtained from the field studies are primarily used for analyzing and comparing phytocoenotic data [1].

In order to describe various vegetation species, the following quantitative characteristics are used depending on a particular layer:

• abundance evaluation according to the scale of O. Drude;
• a plant cover;
• landscape aspects;
• a common plant cover [1].

The characteristics obtained from field studies are recorded in special forms of ecological descriptions for each layer and sublayer. A name of vegetation species is identified according to dominate plant species of each layer.

On the basis of described forest and herbaceous vegetation characteristics, all the plants are classified into the following categories: a life form, an ecological group, a coenotic group, latitudinal and longitudinal groups, a particular value. In addition to the vegetation classification, a statistical analysis of species, communities and families is carried out for various ecological descriptions.

The developed database includes the following lookup tables:

• phytocenosis types;
• vegetation layers and sublayers;
• plant families, communities and species;
• abundance evaluation according to the scale of O. Drude;
• phonological stages;
• landscape aspects;
• plant covers evaluation according to the Hult-Sernander scale;
• location descriptions [5].

A ‘domain object’ is a table containing useful data of the field being studied with a more sophisticated structure in contrast with a lookup table.

The database also involves the following domain objects:

• a ecological description for a specific sample area;
• a description of a vegetation layer and sublayer;
• a description of woody species for a studied area;
• a description of non-layered vegetation features and etc.

1. Korchagin, A.A.: The Field: Vegetation building. Moscow, Book On Demand, Vol. 5. (2012)
2. Hennekens, M. S., Schaminee, H. J.: TurboVEG, a comprehensive database management system for vegetation data. Journal of Vegetation Science, Vol. 12, 589-591. (2011)
3. Tichý, L.: Juice, software for vegetation classification. Journal of Vegetation Science, Vol. 13, 451-453. (2002)
4. Zverev, A.A.: Information Technologies in vegetation studies. Tomsk, TML Press, 115-250. (2007)
5. Novakovskiy, A.B.: The software overview for ecological data analysis. Vestnik Instituta biologii Komi NC UB RAS, No. 8, 2-7. (2005)

All articles of author «Щукова Кристина Борисовна»