[] Where Did Those GBIF Occurrences Come From? Providing Digital Access to NatureServe's Reference Database: Report on a Project in the Early Stages of Design TDWG 2011 Annual Conference New Orleans, LA Donna J Reynolds Robert A Morris Filtered Push Project Harvard University

NatureServe Data on GBIF 759,500+ NatureServe network occurrence records provided to GBIF – Basis of record? – “Personal Communication, Published Report, Unpublished Report (interpreted as Unknown)” About 540,000 (70%) of them are linked to a citation in NatureServe’s central database. Examples: – Knisley, C. Barry Monitoring Cicindela puritana and C. dorsalis dorsalis in Maryland, Final Report submitted to MD Natural Heritage Program. – Davidson, B Field survey form for Botrychium montanum. – Eid, Nancy. Sent in letter about rare plants on Onion Peak, 1998.

35-year history 61 member programs in the U.S. and Canada, and one or more associated institutions in 13 LAC countries Locally collected data from U.S. and Canada aggregated into a central database A common data management software (Biotics 4) Data from NatureServe Network

Biotics Conceptual Data Model Element Occurrence (EO) An element at a specific location; generally a delineated species population or ecological community stand Site A land unit of ecological, scientific, or conservation interest Managed Area A protected land unit Concept name Global, national, state/ province name Synonyms Mapping and ranking guidance May be contained within Mapped asOccur within Lineage tracking Community structure Standard / non-standard relationships Scientific Name Nomenclature Information Classification Taxonomic Information Taxonomy Location Tracking Distribution Information Ranking Status Information Characterization Natural History Information Organism or Community Data captured at multiple geographic levels (Global, National, State/Provincial, Local) Element Management Current management techniques and programs applied to the element EO Specifications Criteria used to define an EO and rate its viability Element Group A number of elements with common EO specifications or management information Stewardship Reference An information source (e.g., literature citation, field notes, specimen, map, image, web site) Observations

Reference File Over 570,000 records Books, journal articles, unpublished reports, field forms, specimens, personal communications, maps, websites, images Less than 25% represent published sources (books, articles, etc.) Most of the “gray literature” is still on paper in natural heritage program offices

The Project Proposal Evaluate the usefulness and feasibility of exposing metadata and selected attributes from NatureServe’s reference database on the web

Goals Contribute to improving access to gray literature by ‘publicizing’ its existence – Occurrence references – Documentation on conservation status, local phenology, ecosystem composition and changes over time, etc. Ultimately, provide digital access to nonsensitive unpublished literature

Challenges NatureServe is not the owner of the data  Current data sharing agreements with our affiliated programs that specify how data may be used do not address the reference data Reference records may contain sensitive information (e.g., notes about the location of an endangered species)  Can this concern can be addressed simply by excluding certain attributes? Resources!  Seeking partners interested in the same goals