Integrating GIScience and Crop Science datasets: a study involving genetic, geographic and environmental data

Sharing and reusing data in research is a welcome and encouraged practice since it maximises the scientific outcomes given limited financial, material and human resources. Interdisciplinary research is considered to benefit from this practice, uniting researchers and data from two or more disciplines to advance fundamental understanding or tackle problems whose solution is beyond the limit of an individual body of knowledge. Here we discuss the challenges of combining data across disciplines, focusing in particular on associating geographic location data with genetic data in the context of a project involving Crop Science and Geospatial Information Science disciplines. This project aims to improve understanding of how geographical, environmental and anthropocentric factors affect the genetic variation in a neglected and underutilised crop called Bambara groundnut.