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| Author(s): |
Debora Pignatari Drucker
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas |
| Defense date: | 2012-08-20 |
| Examining board members: |
Carlos Alfredo Joly;
Antonio Mauro Saraiva;
Michael Maier Keller;
Paula Felício Drummond de Castro;
Thomas Michael Lewinsohn
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| Advisor: | Leila da Costa Ferreira; Carlos Alfredo Joly |
| Abstract | |
There are numerous scientists and institutions that produce knowledge about Brazilian ecosystems, and a lot is already known about the biological diversity therein. New findings and guidelines for decision making based on scientific knowledge can be made by using information that already exists, but is largely dispersed, poorly documented and inaccessible to users. It is therefore necessary to integrate biodiversity information, which may occur by consolidating data from similar studies in order to expand temporal and spatial analysis scales, or by associating knowledge generated by studies with different approaches. New computer technologies are continuously developed by information scientists, providing opportunities for the Biodiversity Informatics field to improve its capacity of making sense of the growing amount of heterogeneous data of diverse provenance, thus contributing to represent the current state of knowledge on the Earth's Systems and to communicate this knowledge among the various stakeholders. This study aimed at analyzing the information system developed for the Thematic Project Biota Functional Gradient as a case study on biodiversity and ecological data integration, and at discussing the applications and limitations of this system for conservation and environmental management. To this end, I propose a framework for investigating biodiversity information infrastructures and discuss their potential as boundary objects between science and decision making in conservation and environmental management; analyze the characteristics of ecological data, the best practices to document them and some existing tools to manage them in order to promote the integration of ecological knowledge; describe the stages of development of the information system for the Thematic Project Biota and discuss it through the lens of the proposed analytical framework. The information system was efficient to manage data and metadata provided by researchers. Information retrieval was possible by querying the metadata catalog based on keywords, and by querying the database system based on the selection of variables and parameters of space and time. The ability to query any variable of interest, regardless of association with a taxonomic entity, set up an original and innovative information system on biodiversity. In the studied system, the database is truly generic: the only restriction is the mandatory requirement for spatial information. The results showed that advances on computational tools for managing biodiversity and ecosystem data enable analyses that maximize the value of data collected in individual surveys. To perpetuate technological development initiatives such as the system investigated here, it is necessary to undertake further efforts in order to promote institutional arrangements, legislation and administration that act as foundations for information infrastructures and provide sustainability over time. Furthermore, it is necessary to train human resources in the use and development of technological tools, and to promote awareness and a collaborative culture between the actors involved in order to make data sharing and curation widely adopted practices (AU) | |