At the core of the project’s implementation is the scientific value of the natural collections collected at the Faculty of Biology of Adam Mickiewicz University. For decades, the activities of FoB UAM (and earlier UAM structures conducting research and educators in the field of natural sciences) collected one of the largest in the country, and in some areas also in Europe, a collection of botanical, mycological and zoological specimens. These collections are of significance not only archival, but also have an invaluable scientific value, giving great potential for research and didactic work, as well as for use in cultural, socio-economic, and legal contexts.
PSNC provides IT infrastructure that maintains a base consistent with international standards of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the largest open database in the world created as part of an international agreement. The PSNC infrastructure enables greater flexibility, the ability to implement HA (high availability) and security, and the implementation of data storage, giving the possibility to increase reliability by additional backups of data from disk systems to tape.
In addition, PSNC is responsible for the development of the database and metadata structures, design and implementation of the database, developing of tools for effective data entry, defining interfaces (APIs) allowing access to data to all interested entities, development, and availability of end-user applications, IT infrastructure support the scope of data storage and processing as well as ensuring the system’s continuity and security of data stored in it.
The project is implemented by a consortium of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center.
As a result of the project, a digital database on biodiversity is created and made available to a wide range of stakeholders (scientists, state and local administration, state services and officers, teachers, students, members of non-governmental organizations). Digitalization and access are provided to the unique nature collections of the Faculty of Biology of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, consisting of 54 collections of plants, fungi, and animals, and 12 specialist and iconographic collections, yielding 2 million unique records, which in effect becomes Poland’s largest digital database presenting biotic diversity of many places in the world. There are also infrastructure facilities for large-scale digitization available within the project.
The AMUNATCOLL portal: https://amunatcoll.pl/
