Web Services

This page provides an area for a range of web services to be documented, accessed and explored. Web services, in the context of biodiversity informatics, relates to the automated collation of data feeds from one or more authoritative data providers.

Initially we will present semi-automated web applications allowing the user to pull together names and specimen data from a range of local and remote online data sources. In the future, these services will become more sophisticated and will increasingly allow machine-machine interaction and interrogation using developing web service architectures and paradigms such as UDDI (Universal Data Discovery and Integration).

• FLAVIA - A prototype application demonstrating simultaneous query and presentation of data from three significant flora data sources at state, national and global scale. Access is via a short form spawning species name queries to FloraBase, IPNI (APNI and IK components only) and the AVH (itself a distributed real-time query engine collating specimen geocode data from eight Australian herbaria).
  
  Returned data is presented in a simple frames-based interface, allowing the user to interact further with each data source within each frame to customise the specific components to be viewed.
  • FloraBase names data is initially presented, but maps, images, descriptions and specimen data can all be accessed in the usual manner via the 'smartie buttons'
  • IPNI names data from both APNI and IK sources are presented, with detailed data from each data source able to be retrieved, including authors, protologue reference, type citation, basionym and general notes
  • AVH returns a map collating data points for the queried taxon found in up to 5 Australian herbaria. Access to layers, pan, zoom and data point query are available.

By Alex Chapman; last updated on 3 August 2006.

Publication or other use of content on this site is unauthorised unless that use conforms with the copyright statement.