2 posts tagged with "Ecology and Evolutionary Biology"

The LSA Herbarium curates and maintains a comprehensive database collection of known vascular plant species growing wild in Michigan, based on the Field Manual of Michigan Flora. The original Michigan Flora website was developed decades ago to serve as an “evolving illustrated companion to the Field Manual, presenting photographs of the species and their diagnostic features, and build on the foundation of the Field Manual by incorporating updates and new discoveries.” The original website had become quite dated, however, and increasingly difficult to use, update, maintain, and secure. The Research Software Engineering team worked closely with Michigan Flora curators to design and develop an all new Michigan Flora website from the ground up.

The principal investigator (PI) wanted to incorporate a feature from a predator-prey dynamics simulator written by a colleague for a recent project into a plant-pollinator dynamics simulator the PI developed for an earlier paper. The team was able to help the PI identify and overcome a critical design problem that stood in the way of adding the desired feature to her program.