Efficient web access to distributed biological collections using a taxonomy browser

We propose to use an explicit taxonomy as a key element in a system that integrates distributed, heterogeneous biological databases. The system features a Web interface that enables a user to navigate a taxonomy tree and to post queries to distributed biological collections databases based on a selected node in the taxonomy tree. We use the taxonomy dataset published by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information as a canonical taxonomy and we describe the representation of database coverage in terms of this taxonomy. We present some rules to detect the semantic conflicts between the canonical taxonomy and those partially represented in the independent databases. We provide facilities to resolve the conflicts. We propose a mapping algorithm and describe how mapping information is used to generate queries for distributed searching. The Web-based taxonomy browser called TaxaServer is implemented as a component of our Bioplex system.