№1, 2020
Development of a global plant resource database and Azerbaijan's activity in the World Flora Online Consortium
Summary
Developing rapidly, in recent years, information and communication technologies have become an integral part of human activity and socio-economic relations in all spheres and in everyday life. From this point of view, if we look at the last 30 years, we see the manifestations and results of the development of science and technology, which are oriented towards the future, allowing us to analyze and generalize, from different angles, all areas of science, including plants. Of course, botanical, taxonomic and, more recently, phylogenetic studies all over the world, lasting over 260 years, have passed a long historical path to reach this stage. The development and implementation of the first target of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, the World Flora Online (WFO) project, builds on this principle and draws on international experience. Within the framework of this consortium, the effective and purposeful activity of the Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan in the field of creating dynamic electronic databases of plants in the near future determines the strategic direction of work on the creation of electronic flora – «e-flora» with greater opportunities than traditional flora. Information about the flora of Azerbaijan, obtained from existing electronic databases, monographs, national and regional floras, checklists, as well as taxonomic expert networks in a coordinated international taxonomic community, will be generalized and become an interactive information system with powerful search capabilities and navigation.