Information Technologies Supporting the Operation of the Germplasm Bank of Aquatic Species of Baja California, Mexico.

For many years, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has insisted on the importance of biodiversity conservation. Agriculture and livestock breeding were the first sectors to understand the importance of conservation. Although the fishing sector has fallen behind, several countries have developed programs to preserve aquatic genetic resources. In Mexico, the National Science and Technology Council (CONACyT) and Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) are supporting a pilot project to help in the conservation of aquatic species. This project focuses on the development of the Germplasm Bank of Aquatic Species of Baja California (GBAS). One of the most crucial parts of any germplasm repository is the information system supporting the operation of the bank. The development of a management information system depends on the objectives of the repository. The process requires planning, taking into account the particular design needed for the bank and identification of functions. The goal of this work was to describe the development of the information system designed for the GBAS. The operational requirements characterized for the information system was called GBAS Information Management System (GBAS-IMS® and include requirements for managing the information of the bank and a set of requirements for the protocol definition such as the user management, the facility management, and the information publication over the Internet. Due to the complexity defined by the set of requirements, the use of information technologies was required to guarantee a functional and reliable system. This paper describes how the use of information technologies together with a set of software engineering practices allowed the construction of the information system. The items described on it includes the development process to build the system, the architecture defined for the system, a description of the most important components, the database schema defined for the system, the most relevant information about the implementation, and experiences and future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]