Miscelanea 137 (2017). PAL-TUC Pollen Database: una aplicación para la gestión de información de colecciones polínicas

Reyes, Nora J. F. 2017. “PAL-TUC Pollen: Database: An application for information management of pollen collections”. The collection of pollen belonging to the Palynology laboratory of the Miguel Lillo Foundation (PAL-TUC) is a database of Non-acetylized and acetolized pollen grains used as a reference collection to compare pollen grains of different species with those observed in different types of samples (soil, water, honey, air etc.). Currently, studies of pollen morphology, melissopalynology (determinations of pollen grains in honey) and aeropalinology (study of pollen grains contained in the air are carried out in the laboratory through the NOA Aerobiological Station). The palinoteca is accompanied by a photo library. All these data were stored in various formats such as paper documents, digital documents such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PDF, images. It was necessary to implement a computerized data management system based on the standards of biological data processing. After analyzing some data management tools, it was decided to develop an application adjusted to the requirements of the laboratory. In this work the PAL-TUC pollen Database application is presented as a computer tool, which stores the information of the pollen ma- terial of the palinoteca and links this information with derived data and associated with it.This DBMS (Database Management System) is based on the relational model, it links images, descriptions and incorporates specific search criteria. The implementation of this application enables to optimize information loading, integration, access and extraction. The development of the attributes of taxonomic and spatial data correspond to the guidelines recommended by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and National Database System (SNDB). In terms of the specialty, palinology, protocols matching those recommended by the Network online catalogs pollen project (RCPol) were followed.