BIOTIK: Biodiversity Informatics and Co-Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive Shared Knowledge Base. Western Ghats v 1.0. A multimedia identification system of evergreen tree species of the Western Ghats, India. [DVD-ROM]

B.R. Ramesh (1) , Narayanan Ayyappan (1) , Pierre Grard , Juliana Prosperi , Soupramanien Aravajy , J.-P. Pascal

1 IFP - Institut Français de Pondichéry

BIOTIK is a computer-aided application dedicated to identifying and to providing a knowledge base on tree species occuring in the evergreen forests of the Western Ghats (a world biodiversity hotspot). The knowledge base covers about 528 species. The application allows a user to identify a species through a visual interface (IDAO), completed with graphical representations of characters and their different states. It builds a virtual tree on screen, based on the character states selected by the user and also suggests possibilities for missing or erroneous information. Once the species has been identified, it provides a resume of botanical and ecological information in local languages (Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam) and in English, besides the photographs of characters. The application caters to a wide range of users like students and researchers who can use it as a self-learning tool, foresters and para-taxonomists as decision support system in forest management.

Mots clés: Taxonomy; interactive key; identification; Western Ghats; tree species

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Systématique, phylogénie et taxonomie

B.R. Ramesh, Narayanan Ayyappan, Pierre Grard, Juliana Prosperi, Soupramanien Aravajy, et al.. BIOTIK: Biodiversity Informatics and Co-Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive Shared Knowledge Base. Western Ghats v 1.0. A multimedia identification system of evergreen tree species of the Western Ghats, India. [DVD-ROM]. Institut Français de Pondichéry, pp.1 DVD, 2010, Collection Ecologie n°46, 978-81-8470-168-5. ⟨hal-02943472⟩