Taxonomy and Biodiversity Informatics

The workroup is led by Prof. Urmas Kõljalg (urmas.koljalg@ut.ee).

Our workgroup studies species, their dispersal and interspecies relations. For this, we use morphological, biochemical, genetical, etc. methods. Our main research focus is on fungi and lichens, but to a lesser extent also bacteria, plants and insects.

We are closely involved with Big Data. We have been dealing with development of digital data archives for over 15 years. In this time, our workgroup has produced the World's second largest repository of macine-readable scientific data, PlutoF. We are also developing UNITE, a system for DNA based classification of fungal species.