Schriften zu Genetischen Ressourcen - Genres

Federal Information System Genetic Resources (BIG)
BIG is also relevant for the private sector, especially for breeding companies and
natural raw material industry.
Institutional collaboration
Four German institutions agreed to pool their extensive databases on wild and cultivated
plants and their expertise in database management to establish the Federal
Information System Genetic Resources (Bundesinformationssystem Genetische
Ressourcen, BIG) as an on-line information system on the internet.
The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) at Bonn holds databases
on the wild flora (in situ), species distribution and ecology, as well as databases on
the protection status of plant species according to national and EU legislation. It acts
as the German Scientific Authority to CITES, the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species. On behalf of the Association of Botanical Gardens, the Department
for Special Botany and the Botanical Garden of the Ruhr University Bochum
(RUB) document the collections (ex situ) of botanical gardens in Germany.
The Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) at Gatersleben performs
basic research on cultivated plants. It maintains the collection and database of
nearly 100.000 accessions of cultivated plants (ex situ), and developed a web database
on “Mansfeld‘s Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops”. The Information
Centre for Biological Diversity (IBV) of the German Centre for Agricultural
Documentation and Information (ZADI) at Bonn has many years of experience providing
information systems on the Internet. Besides a number of crop specific databases
it manages the central German database on plant genetic resources on the
Internet. The development of BIG is financed by the Federal Ministry of Education
and Research (BMBF).
Technical background
For integrating the heterogeneous data sources, BIG follows a mixed approach of
‘Data Warehousing’ and ‘Mediated Approach’. A central repository is used for requests
about plant names, which shows detailed information about taxonomic concepts,
synonyms, common names, etc. Using this information, the taxa of interest
can be chosen, and requests on further detailed information (e.g., holding institutions,
evaluation data) are sent to dispersed databases. The user is supported by a thesaurus,
containing 120 items covering topics such as breeding characteristics, biology,
ecology, distribution, use, access, and references.
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