The electronic collection of the World Ocean fish parasites maintained by Kovalevsky Institute of Marine Biological Research RAS
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Abstract
Biological collections are the basis for taxonomic research and study of the regional biodiversity. The aims of this work are the creation of an electronic catalogue of collection specimens and taxonomic database (DB), as well as the development of a web resource to access them, for integrating biological collections in the research process. The IMBR Collection of Marine Parasites is used as material for this site. The PHP and JavaScript programming languages are used for its creation and the relation database management system MYSQL is used for manage database. The website and database are operated by the Apache webserver. Website marineparasites.org includes the electronic catalog of the collection, the taxonomic database and the repository of publications about species of fish parasites. The website provides an interactive interface to access the above listed resources. The functioning of the website is based on four entities related to each other: a collection object, specimens, taxa, and publication. Each entity corresponds to a database table. During filling the tables, the system automatically creates connections between collection samples, their type and taxonomic status and other attributes. Visitors of the site can make requests using filters and get a complete representation on the collection. Webpage of taxon consists of the data on the species systematic position and its synonyms. Indicator of the presence of samples of the species in the collection, a list of attributes of collection exemplars, publications that mention this species, type locality and host of the parasite as well as other regions and hosts of its finding, description and images are located on the page of the parasite species. Thus, the user follows from the descriptions of the parasite species to their hosts, from the collection samples to their images and taxonomic diagnosis, publications on this parasite and inversely. English language of interface facilitates that more researchers can obtain information on the collection of marine parasites maintained by Institute of Marine Biological Research RAS and helps to integrate it into the international web resources on biodiversity. The site reports specific information to professional researchers of parasites, but ideas it is based on allow to develop it into a resource on collections of any organisms and diversity of flora and fauna of any regions. The site is the result of fruitful cooperation between biologists and programmers; it promotes the intensification of exchange of collection data and samples, and is a tool for studying parasite components of marine communities. Project is supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant No 15-29-02684 ofi-m.
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References
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