Modern computer technologies in Biology: a scientific depository of phytodiversity of the transboundary territory of the Altai highland country

Abstract

In the modern period of biodiversity development, when studying the territory of the mountainous countries of the world, the active influence of such trends as genomics and digitalization is noted. Within Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China, the Altai highland country (AHC) is the highest uplift of North Asia, its biodiversity level is three times richer than it is in the West Siberian Plain. The collected material in the herbarium collections of the Altai State University (ASU, Barnaul) is more than 450 thousand herbarium leaves (ALTB Herbarium), and it is the biological repository of unique genetic material on AHC, along with other large depositories of the world (herbariums, zoological collections, etc.). The concerted actions of many countries of the world have already allowed to aggregate large data on the biodiversity of many mountain countries in order to ensure the sustainable development of these unique natural complexes. During our project, ASU scientists have developed a scientific depository with the possibility of integrating bio data into the Global Biodiversity Information Fund (GBIF). Today, data from ASU and other GBIF operators allow digital resources to be integrated across the whole spectrum of living organisms in the AHC, from genes to ecosystems. They allow linking them to issues important to science and society using GIS tools. Also, in this study, we produced a modern botanical and geographical zoning of the territory of the AHC, using open GIS systems (GeoJSON).