MorphBank, the development of a general purpose bioinformatics database

We introduce a bioinformatics digital image database system called MorphBank which has been completely redesigned under an NSF grant to support the Tree-of-Life Initiative. Initially, the new system will comply with the Hymenoptera (wasp, ants, bees, and saw flies) Working Group functional specifications for phylogenetic analysis of higher level relationships using character state analysis. The design methodologies that have been used will enable scientists to use web services technologies to access the information using a variety of Data Grid tools. This approach was developed to facilitate high level searches on annotated digital image information contained in the MorphBank system. Techniques have been employed that will accommodate different ontologies and frequent schema changes. This approach relies on well defined standards within the biology community and decreases the amount of manual effort needed to search large databases. Currently, biological images of selected taxonomic groups are being used to populate the database but we believe this approach will allow information to be shared among all biology research projects.