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Flora Information System (FIS) and Victorian Fauna Database (VFD) are comprehensive, easy-to-use information systems to the plants and animals of Victoria.  They contain descriptions, photographs, identification aids and distribution data for virtually all species of vascular plants, mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs that live in the wild in this state.  The desktop versions come on, and run from, a USB Flash Drive so they are completely portable and can be installed in less than a minute on any modern Windows-based computer (XP, Vista, 7 and 8).  The web-based versions can be accessed from any web-linked computer and have been tested on the five major browsers (Internet Explorer 8 is not completely compatible).. 

The Flora Information System (FIS) and Victorian Fauna Database (VFD) are a fully-functional geographically-registered, relational databases of distribution and descriptive data on Victorian plants and animals. Together they contains over 5 millions records of over 8000 species, sub-species, varieties, forms, hybrids and undescribed taxa of plants and animals from over 900,000 survey or collection sites.  Data have been gathered from ecological surveys and collecting trips carried out by a wide range of groups, both government and private, amateur and professional over, more than 100 years.

The system is designed to operate on Microsoft Windows 8, 7, Vista or XP in a standalone or network environment.

The relational database consists of six main components each with a number of sub-components:

Species List: A coded taxonomic species list with a range of lookup files.  The species list for plants contains over 70 fields which can be used to characterise each species.  The characters can be used to distinguish such features as conservation status at state and national level, general appearance, flower type and colour, flower times, fruit type, leaf shape and size, and others.  For animals there are fewer such fields and these include diet, breeding season, periods of activity etc.   
Species Descriptions: For each species there is concise description which is as much as possible in plain English with a few technical terms as is practical without trivialising the text.  For all technical terms there is an on-line glossary .
Species Photographs: For 3900 of the vascular plant species and 890 of the animals there are digital colour photographs.  For many species there are several photographs depicting, for plants, the whole plant, flowers, fruit, leaves and other characteristic features, and for animals, colour forms, sexes, adults and juveniles.
Survey or Collection Sites: A series of uniquely identified, geographically located and dated recording or collection sites.  Each site may contain information on the locality reliability, the collector, the altitude etc.
Species in Sites: A list of all species recorded from each site.  This list is linked to the main species list, the descriptive text and the photographs by the unique species code.
Maps: A series of geographically-registered maps, of varying resolution from 1:1,000,000 to 1:100,000, upon which distribution data can be superimposed or from which regional searches for species can be executed.

The botanical nomenclature is based on advice from the Royal Botanic Gardens. The conservation status of each species within Victoria (rare, vulnerable, endangered, extinct) is based on determinations by DSE and RBG staff in consultation with other professional botanists while the conservation status within Australia follows the list from the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. 

The zoological nomenclatures is based on advice from DSE and the Museum of Victoria, as well professional zoologists in Victoria.  The conservation status of the fauna in Victoria is based on advice from DSE while Australian conservations status is based on the EPBC.

All distribution data within the FIS has passed through three validation tests before incorporation. Data that fails any of the tests is withheld from the FIS until it has been checked and amended.

There are three basic functions for the  FIS and VFD for which the software and database structures are optimised.

Looking up a plant or animal species  
The packages show, at a glance, the names, classification and conservation status of all 5000 vascular plant species (and selected non vascular species) or 780 mammal, bird, reptile, frog and freshwater fish species (and selected invertebrates and marine fish) recorded for Victoria.  Each species has a plain English description and most are represented by one or more colour photographs.  You can find the names by typing in a scientific name or a common name, you can even enter an old out of date name and there is a good chance the correct species will be found.  [More]

Find the distribution of any species
Once you have found the species you are looking for you may, with a single mouse-click, plot its distribution - as a series of grids - on any one of a range of maps of Victoria.  The themes for these maps include parks and public land, topography, climate, bioregions etc.  Each of the maps can be printed or exported as high-quality vector images for desktop publication and sharing with colleagues. [More]

Finding all plant or animal species for any area 
You may load any of the maps and, using online sketching procedures to delineate an area on that map, search any area of interest.  Clicking a search button will find all the species recorded for that area and the number of times it has been recorded.  The resulting list can then be printed, exported or queried further.   [More]