  We have recently built a database system called BODHI, intended to store
plant bio-diversity information. It is based on an object-oriented modeling
approach and is developed completely around public-domain software. The unique
feature of BODHI is that it seamlessly integrates diverse types of data,
including taxonomic characteristics, spatial distributions, and genetic
sequences, thereby spanning the entire range from molecular to organism-level
information. A variety of sophisticated indexing strategies are incorporated to
efficiently access the various types of data, and a rule-based query processor
is employed for optimizing query execution. In this paper, we report on our
experiences in building BODHI and on its performance characteristics for a
representative set of queries.
