1. A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Dr., Yury Yu. Dgebuadze Dr., Varos G. Petrosyan WEB-ORIENTED INFORMATIONAL SYSTEMS ON BIODIVERSITY AND BIORESOURSES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

2. Presentation Overview  Elaboration of Multilanguage version of the WEB-portal and Information- Retrieval System on biodiversity of vertebral animals of Russia  Information Storage and Retrieval System and Database on rare and endangered species of the Russian Federation  Multilanguage version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserves  WEB-portal of the program “Fundamental bases of bio-resources management”  Corporative WEB-portal on genetic and biologic collections of the Russian Federation  WEB-portal of Alien species on the territory of Russia

3. Introduction Application of the modern informational technology is a necessary condition for international and interdepartmental data exchange, conservation, restoration, stable usage of biological diversity components and a having no alternative methodological approach for initial stage of basic and application studies automation. Complex research program formation for the next few years considering the intensive development of bio-informational technologies and the integration of existing databases, informational systems and WEB- sites on species diversity of Russia from the local to Federal level into the structure of integrated informational system and distributed database on different taxons is a task of current importance. Taxonomy is the base for any basic and application studies in the field of biodiversity conservation. Objective, open to general use information about institutes, concrete researchers for separate groups and regions, on their informational and communicational resources seems very valuable and important. In IPEE RAS, together with other institutes of the RAS and departments of different Ministries (for Science and Education, for Nature Resources and Agriculture), the pilot versions of the basic WEB – oriented informational systems are made, which are actively operated by many users in the Internet.

4. Elaboration of the Multilanguage version of the WEB- portal and information- Retrieval System on biodiversity of vertebral animals of Russia (in Russian) It includes the species and subspecies of 295 fresh-water fishes, 29 - amphibians, 84 – reptiles, 739 - birds and 310 – mammals (URL: www.sevin.ru/vertebrates/). This system has been developed by the members of the IPEE RAS, the Zoological Museum of the Moscow State University under financial support of Minpromnauka of the Russian Federation and the Program of Presidium of the RAS, “Biodiversity”, in 2003-2006. www.sevin.ru/vertebrates/

5. Information Storage and Retrieval System and Database on rare and endangered species of the Russian Federation (in Russian) It consists of two parts: “The Red Book of the Russian Federation (animals)” – 434 species, and “The Red Book of the RSFSR (plants)” – 533 species (URL: www.sevin.ru/redbooksevin/). Informational System includes electronic versions of the Red-Book species of living organisms, presented in the latest issues. One of the important features of the system compared to the original version is the presence of a full- functional contextual search. Informational storage and retrieval system has been developed by the members of the IPEE RAS under financial support of the Ministry for Nature Resources of Russia. www.sevin.ru/redbooksevin/

6. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia General view of the main page of the Information System

7. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia Icons for selection of different modes and ways of information presentation The main menu of the Information System

8. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia Paging form of the big taxon presentation by the example of fish species

9. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The tree like presentation of the list of fish species

10. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The mode of the species selection with the help of sequential queries to the database by the example of Mammals

11. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The main form of information presentation in the mode of contextual search

12. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia General description of the taxons included into the System

13. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The standard WEB-page reflecting the data of geographic block on the Verkhne-Tazovskiy Reserve

14. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The standard WEB-page of the fish species presentation of Russian Reserves by the example of Acipenser sturio Linnaeus, 1758

15. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The standard WEB-page of the amphibian species presentation of Russian Reserves by the example of Common newt -Triturus vulgaris (Linne, 1758)

16. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The standard WEB-page of the reptile species presentation of Russian Reserves by the example of Caucasian agama - Laudakia caucasia (Eichwald, 1831)

17. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The standard WEB-page of the avian species presentation of Russian Reserves by the example of Asiatic White Ibis -Threskiornis melanocephalus (Lapham, 1790)

18. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The standard WEB-page of the mammalian species presentation of Russian Reserves by the example of Western European Hedgehog - Erinaceus europaeus Linnaeus 1758

19. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The standard WEB-page of the vascular plants presentation of Russian Reserves by the example of vascular plant species - Equisetum palustre L.

20. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia ISRS includes an integrated database of the living organisms preserved at present in the Nature Reserve’s territories of Russia. Russian-English version of the system is realized by the example of fish-shaped and fishes (333), amphibians (26) and reptiles (254), birds (696), mammals (254), anthocerotes and liverworts (328), mosses (883), lichens (2015) and vascular plants (7920). Cadastre data of the Russian Reserves are presented within the bounds of conceptual informational model involving Federal and Departmental subordination; administrative position and Federal region; the year of organization; the main tasks and goals; the presence of the Biosphere’s Reserve status; the square and character of spatial distribution of the Reserve; inclusion into the list of the objects of the World Cultural and Nature Heritage; skeleton map with geographic gridding, and also the gallery of more than 1500 photos, reflecting the Reserve’s appearance.

21. Multi-language version of WEB – oriented Information Storage and Retrieval System (ISRS) on the fauna and flora of Nature Reserve’s of Russia The following development of the WEB-portal will demand the creation of integrated database of thematic maps of the ecotopes of the rare, game and alien species of animals of the Nature Reserve’s Territories of Russia on the basis of long-term monitoring data and remote sensing measurements. ISRS was developed in 2003 - 2006 under a financial support of Minpromnauka (2003-2004), by grants of The Fish and Wildlife Service, USA (2005-2006, English version of the system) and the Program of Basic Researches of the Presidium of the RAS, «Biodiversity and Dynamics of Gene Pools” (2006).

22. The WEB-portal of the program “Fundamental bases of bio-resources management” of the Department of Biological Sciences of the RAS The WEB-portal of the program “Fundamental bases of bio-resources management” of the Department of Biological Sciences of the RAS In the WEB- portal the materials are presented by about 30 Institutes and regional Research Centers of the RAS. The access is provided on the following partitions of the portal: “Main directions” – in this partition the results of basic and application studies on the main directions of the program are given; “Organizations” – in this partition the information about organizations in which the work on program was made is given; “Specialists” – in the partition the data about the officials of the projects on the program are presented. The following partitions are also presented: “Bio-resources classification”, “Methodology of generalized DB on bio- resources”, “Legislation”, “Evaluation of damage and impacts” etc. In the WEB-portal, a limited access to unique and unpublished information is presented. In the partitions of the portal only a brief annotation of the works on the project and obtained results is given. Full texts of the reports are stored separately from the portal pages in PDF format and become available to the user only after registration procedure in the system.

23. Corporative WEB-portal on genetic and biologic collections ( http://www.sevin.ru/collections) of the Russian Federation. http://www.sevin.ru/collections  Structurally, the portal joins centralized meta- and real data on genetic and biologic collections of Russia, existing in different organizations of the Ministries and Departments of the RF. The main principle used in the system lied in creation of convenient WWW interfaces for the work of different specialists on creation and actualization of Databases. The WEB-portal unites distributed WEB-sites (of the Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms – IBPM RAS, the Institute of Cytology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Botanical Gardens of the Petrozavodskiy State University, the Botanical Institute of the RAS, the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences – IPEE RAS). The current version of the WEB-portal includes seven thematic partitions:  Collections of Microorganisms,  Collections of Cell Cultures,  Herbarium Collections,  Botanical Collections,  Integration with the portal of “Living collections of plants and animals of the Reserves of the RF”, integration with the portal “The Red Book”. Computerization” of the collections and their joining into an entire informational net will allow the active use of genetic resources concentrated in them for the development of Russian biology and biotechnology.

24. WEB-portal of alien species on the territory of Russia The main goals of the Internet-portal include: 1. Informing civilians, legislative organs and scientific community on the problems of invasive organisms; 2. Coordination of different specialist activity and organizations within the framework of created National Centre on the study of invasive species; 3. Creation an integrated information space on the problem of invasion on the territory of Russia.

25. WEB-portal of alien species on the territory of Russia Developed by us the first version of the problem-oriented Internet portal of biological invasions includes the following thematic partitions: the features of invasion process of definite groups of living organisms (fungi, plants, mollusks, insects, fishes, mammals) and invasions in separate ecosystems; prediction of possible invasions, evaluation of the damage from invasions: biocenological, economical and social-political ones; the ways and methods of decreasing of the negative consequences of the invasions; development of dataware (creation of the databases on alien species). The portal was developed under financial support of Minpromnauka of the RF (2005-2006) and according to the project “The Russian list of alien species and analysis of the NOBANIS studies on alien invasion species” of the Net of the Scandinavian Baltic Countries on Invasion Species (NOBANIS).

26. Conclusion The main important direction presents the extension of created Information System, i.e. the creation of WEB – oriented Information System and integrated DB of thematic maps of the habitats of especially important species of vertebrate animals and revelation of not fire-safe phytocenosises in Russian Nature Reserves. Therefore, this direction can be suggested as one of the priority ones in collaborative studies in the bounds of Russian-American Agreement. For achievement of this goal, it is necessary to accomplish the following tasks:

27. Conclusion Creation of Integrated DB on the rare, game and alien species of vertebrate animals of Russian Reserves and special program means, providing the access to the databases in the Internet. Creation of methodic basis for mapping of vertebrate animals ecotopes and phytocenosises at fire risk on the base of ground monitoring and remote sensing data, obtained from the satellites LANDSAT, SPOT, RESURS - F etc. Creation of thematic maps of rare vertebrate animal species ecotopes in Reserves with the purpose of the study of spatial-temporal dynamics of the population, biotopic distribution and revelation of existent ecologic corridors of immigration and emigration. Thematic mapping of the spatial and biotopic distribution of alien species of vertebrate animals for evaluation of their influence on biologic diversity of Reserves, revelation of the vectors of the travel ways and estimation of the risk of their penetration into the ecosystems of the Russian Federation. Creation of the set of thematic maps reflecting spatial-temporal dynamics in the population number of game species and realization of comparative analysis of their number in comparison with the local, regional and federal indices of animal number for understanding of the main factors determining rather low number of many game species in Russia.

28. Conclusion The suggested Information System and Database of the primary remote sensing data and thematic maps are destined for scientific and public organizations in Russia and USA on the free basis, and also for other specialists and experts of International organizations, controlling the accomplishment of the agreements on International Conventions and Programs by Russian Federation.