PetalPatrol - Botanical Inventory Management#
Application dedicated to digitizing and optimizing floristic inventory processes for ECO-MED’s botanical teams, facilitating collection, validation and analysis of plant species data.
🎯 Objective#
PetalPatrol simplifies and automates botanical inventory management by enabling intuitive field data entry, rigorous taxonomic validation and in-depth analysis of floristic data collected during environmental studies.
🌱 Problem Solved#
Before PetalPatrol, botanical inventory management presented several challenges:
- Time-consuming field data entry prone to errors
- Manual taxonomic validation that was tedious
- Difficult centralization of multi-site data
- Limited statistical analyses of plant communities
- Complex regulatory compliance with TAXREF standards
⚡ Main Features#
Optimized field data entry interface#
- Adaptive forms according to survey type
- Automatic species suggestions by habitat
- Real-time validation of nomenclature
- Offline mode for areas without network coverage
Advanced taxonomic management#
- TAXREF integration for official nomenclature
- Automatic synonymic correspondences
- Management of botanical groups and families
- Detection of heritage and invasive species
Integrated ecological analyses#
- Diversity indices (Shannon, Simpson, Pielou)
- Correspondence analyses between surveys
- Automatic mapping of observations
- Customizable statistical reports
Validation and quality control#
- Automatic verification of ecological consistency
- Flagging of doubtful observations
- Expert validation workflow
- Complete traceability of modifications
🖼️ User Interface#
Interface Evolution#
Legacy Interface#
New Interface - Dark Theme#
Study Selection
Survey Interface
Validation Interface
New Interface - Light Theme#
Study Selection
Location Interface
Survey Interface
Validation Interface
Interface Features#
PetalPatrol’s interface presents an overview of botanical surveys:
- List of ongoing inventory sites
- Data validation status
- Taxonomic quality indicators
- Quick access to analysis tools
- Support for dark and light themes
- Responsive interface adapted for field use
Analysis and visualization tools#
Analysis interface allowing:
- Visualization of plant communities
- Automatic calculation of ecological indices
- Comparison between study sites
- Export of results for reports
🛠️ Technical Architecture#
Technology stack#
- Frontend: Vanilla JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3
- Backend: Node.js, Express.js
- Database: MongoDB with geospatial indexing
- Integration: TAXREF API, R analysis modules
- Authentication: JWT integrated with Azure AD
Specialized services#
TaxonomicValidator#
- Real-time validation against TAXREF
- Management of synonymy and nomenclature
- Automatic detection of input errors
- Species suggestions by ecological context
EcologicalAnalyzer#
- Calculation of diversity indices
- Multivariate community analyses
- Detection of indicator species
- Assessment of ecological quality
DataQualityChecker#
- Automatic consistency checks
- Verification of species associations
- Geographic validation of observations
- Flagging of aberrant data
🔬 Ecological Innovation#
Community approach#
PetalPatrol adopts a holistic approach by analyzing plant communities as a whole, enabling fine understanding of studied ecosystems and their conservation status.
Ecological intelligence#
The application integrates quantitative ecology algorithms to automatically detect vegetation patterns and identify indicator species of ecological condition in environments.
📊 Results and Impact#
Operational gains#
- ⏱️ 70% reduction in field data entry time
- 🎯 95% taxonomic accuracy
- 📈 100% automation of statistical analyses
- 🌿 Automatic detection of 98% of heritage species
Scientific quality#
- ✅ Guaranteed TAXREF compliance
- ✅ Standardization of survey protocols
- ✅ Reproducible and documented analyses
- ✅ Complete data traceability
Environmental impact#
- 🌍 Improved inventory quality
- 🔍 Early detection of invasive species
- 📊 Enhanced scientific monitoring of biodiversity
- 🏛️ Contribution to national databases
🎓 Skills Developed#
Technical#
- Quantitative ecology algorithms
- Taxonomic reference integration
- Biodiversity data analysis
- Field workflow optimization
Methodological#
- Standardized inventory protocols
- Quality control of naturalist data
- Multivariate statistical analyses
- Scientific project management
Ecological#
- Plant systematics expertise
- Understanding of ecosystem dynamics
- Knowledge of conservation issues
- Mastery of official standards
PetalPatrol demonstrates the importance of digitalization in environmental sciences, combining scientific rigor and technical innovation to improve our knowledge and protection of plant biodiversity.