Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Global internet resources for taxonomists Hendrik S EGERS Belgian Biodiversity Platform Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Acronyms unlimited

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Internet Resources for Taxonomists Professional organisation Literature Biodiversity Information: What: Taxonomy / Nomenclature information Where: Biogeographical information / Georef’d data ( minimal)

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Bionet International The world’s leading professional organisation for taxonomists Promotes taxonomy Contains information for taxonomists

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Literature The Biodiversity Heritage Library (26,500+ volumes, 10,800,000+ pages) The Gutenberg project: Google books Google Scholar

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Literature Free content: CBD, FAO, RAMSAR, CMS… technical papers: CABI, IUCN, WWF manuals, reports…

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Literature Free content: Journals: –All free content: The directory of open access journals: E.g., Zoological Studies, Raffles Bulletin, Science Asia,… (but check level: –Some free content: e.g., Zootaxa, J. Nat Hist., … –Free abstracts: all Don’t be shy to request reprints!

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Biodiversity Information : what we’re talking about Biodiversity DATA: What: Taxonomic / nomenclature data Where: Distribution / Geographical info (Georeferenced) Additional information (ecology, natural history, sequences, …) Focus on primary species and species-occurrence data

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 METADATA (data on the data): Who, When, What (descriptive data – references)? Biodiversity Information what we’re talking about  Accuracy  Precision (or resolution)

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Biodiversity Information why we’re talking about it Biodiversity data are scattered in space and time Need for data for science, conservation, management Policy: –OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy (CSTP), June 1999: GBIF. –EU and G8 + 5 Env. Ministers Conf. on Climate, Biodiversity, March 2007 “Potsdam Initiative – Biological Diversity 2010”: encourages development of Global Species Information System (GSIS). –EO Wilson’s TED price wish: EoL. –…

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Names and taxonomy: The Global Names Architecture The taxonomic backbone

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Names… world register of published animal names based on zoological record (Thompson zoological) An initiative of the ICZN

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 …and literature universal Biological indexer and organizer Taxonomic name server Namebank contains undisputed nomenclature metadata, classificationbank stores alternative classifications Includes and links between scientific and vernacular names Initiative within science library community (Woods hole, Massachusetts)

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Catalogue of Life Goal: a catalogue of all known species of organisms (by 2011) Partnership of: Species2000: federation of taxonomic database custodians, largely EUR and Asia-Oceania Integrated Taxonomic Information Service (ITIS - US, Can, MX) CODATA’s (Committee on Data for Science and Technology, ICSU) Global Species Data Networks (Sp2000) Brings together 47 databases, most GSDs; 1M+

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Global Species Databases Biosystematic Database on World Diptera 1350 citations, 1460 collaborators 25 M hits/month

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Regional Species Databases European Nature Information System (EUNIS)

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Topical Species Databases

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 The Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment Global analysis of diversity of freshwater animals Global lists of species Taxonomic scope Tool for science, conservation, management A (1) topical, (2) global species database Contributes to the Catalogue of Life

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 An assessment of the biodiversity of the freshwater animals of the world Browse, search, download lists of freshwater species Upload locality GIS coordinates Visualise on Google Map and Earth The Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 The FADA portal

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Searching the FADA portal

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 FADA search results

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Visualisation of data

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Species and distributions: Global Species Infrastructure System Going beyond the list

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility Goal: free and open access to biodiversity information Participants: countries, economies, organizations Programs: DADI, DIGIT, ECAT, OCB Gives access to 160 M+ occurrence records, data sets

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010

For the oceans The Ocean Biogeographic Information System Goal: make marine biogeographic data, from all over the world, freely available (incl. depth, vert. distribution,…) Established by the Census of Marine Life (CoML) program, an alliance of people and organizations Participant in GBIF, specialized in ocean data

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Something on nuts and bolts… IUBS commission for taxonomic databases, the standardization body for biodiversity informatics Cooperates with CODATA’s Access to Biological Collections Data (ABCD) task group Standards! ABCD, ABCDEFG, TAPIR (TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval), geographical, ….

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Society for the Management of Electronic Biodiversity Data Foster electronic publication of biodiversity data Archiving of electronic biodiversity data Networking between databases Professional society; members: database custodians of ERMS, Fauna Europaea, Euro+Med plantbase Society for the Management of European Biodiversity Data

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Future developments (From the website of the European Commission > Research > International Cooperation) Environment ministers want a GSIS During their meeting from March 2007, G8+5 Environment Ministers support the “Potsdam Initiative – Biological Diversity 2010”, which encourages the development of a 'Global Species Information System'. Three major global 'backbones' of a GSIS The Catalogue of Life ( CoL) partnership (Species2000, ITIS) The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL)

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Future developments « an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth available everywhere by single access on command » EO Wilson’s « TED prize » wish Launched May 9, 2007; budget 50M$ (NSF, Sloan F, MacArthur F); Focus on bioinformatics infrastructure First pages 2008, 10yrs

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Future developments A free directory of life An open, free directory of species by the Wikimedia foundation Content: 108,797 articles Wikispecies is free, because life is public domain!

Hue University Rotifer Taxonomy workshop 6-12 March 2010 Towards an impact factor and citation index for databases…