Taxonomy and Biodiversity Informatics Workgroup

Taxonomy and biodiversity informatics workgroup at the Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu

The workgroup studies  species, their dispersal and interspecies relations. For this, researchers use  morphological, biochemical, genetical, etc. methods. The group’s main research focus is on  fungi and  lichens , but to a lesser extent also  bacteria,  plants  and  insects.
The group are closely involved with  Big Data. They have been dealing with development of  digital data archives for over 15 years. In this time, the  workgroup  has produced the World’s second largest repository of macine-readable scientific data.  PlutoF. The Estonian Biodiversity portal eElurikkus   receives all of their data automatically from this repository.  They are also developing UNITE, a system for DNA based classification of fungal species,   which is used both in science and private enterprices.