Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe

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BioCISE project member

Dr. Walter Berendsohn first specialised in database design and EDP implementation during his work for the botanical garden in El Salvador (LAGU). A floristic database system programmed for and installed at that institute during the years 1987/88 is serving since then to produce herbarium labels, organism labels for the botanical garden and reports for ongoing collection projects. For his PhD Thesis, Dr. Berendsohn developed various programs for ecological data analysis as well as a mapping programme, which directly produced maps from theodolite readings. Serving as advisor to the administration and later as research director of LAGU, Dr. Berendsohn organised and administered the herbarium, the library, and the participation in research projects from 1983 to 1990. He still directs a floristic research project in El Salvador, which is conducted by the BGBM, LAGU and the Ministry of Agriculture of El Salvador.

After taking up a position in Berlin, Dr. Berendsohn has devoted his efforts to standardising data and the computer system at the BGBM. He wrote many of the database programs initially set up at Berlin, among others an inventory programme for the botanical garden's living collections and its endangered organisms unit. Since 1990, CASE tools were applied in program development.

Dr. Berendsohn heads the Department for Biodiversity Informatics and Laboratories of the BGBM. He is chairman of the working group on accession data of the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, the Information Systems Committee of the International Organisation for Plant Information, and the OPTIMA Commission for Information Transfer and Networking. He is a delegate for the European Commission in the OECD Megascience Working Group for Biological Informatics.

Several data models, among them the taxonomic model for the IOPI Global Plant Checklist project, were authored by Dr. Berendsohn and he coordinated the Concerted Action project "A Common Datastructure for European Floristic Databases" on which the BioCISE project is based.

© BioCISE Secretariat. Email: biocise@, FAX: +49 (30) 841729-55
Address: Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 6-8, D-14195 Berlin, Germany