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1 October 2008 Simple Biodiversity Mashups for Non-Tech-Savvy Biologists: A Demonstration Using The Liana Flora of Pennsylvania, USA
Christopher R. Hardy, Nazli W. Hardy
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Abstract

A step-by-step procedure is described and demonstrated using the liana flora of Pennsylvania, USA, for the creation of simple biodiversity informatics applications in the form of Web-mashups. The target audience is non-tech-savvy biologists. For each liana species, the Web-based Liana Atlas of Pennsylvania creates Species Pages by aggregating information or direct links to information on taxonomy, distribution, morphology, genetics, as well as photographs and general encyclopedic or bibliographic information, “live” from third-party websites including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the USDA PLANTS database, Wikipedia®, and GenBank®. The result is an original, information-rich, fully illustrated application providing more up-to-date information on Pennsylvanian lianas in one place than had previously been available elsewhere. More importantly, the procedure described and files available at the demonstration website are portable and customizable to many other biogeographic regions or taxa, and its application requires only basic knowledge of Web navigation and text editors. We hope that this procedure will encourage others, including biologists with limited IT knowledge or at smaller institutions with limited resources, to contribute their own informatics applications valuable to local or regional interest-groups such as educators, students, and amateurs.

Christopher R. Hardy and Nazli W. Hardy "Simple Biodiversity Mashups for Non-Tech-Savvy Biologists: A Demonstration Using The Liana Flora of Pennsylvania, USA," The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 135(4), 585-594, (1 October 2008). https://doi.org/10.3159/08-RA-047R.1
Received: 5 May 2008; Published: 1 October 2008
KEYWORDS
biodiversity
bioinformatics
flora of Pennsylvania
lianas
mashup
woody vines
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