scholarly journals African Biodiversity Challenge: Integrating Freshwater Biodiversity Information to Guide Informed Decision-Making in Rwanda

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e26367
Author(s):  
Yvette Umurungi ◽  
Samuel Kanyamibwa ◽  
Faustin Gashakamba ◽  
Beth Kaplin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystems ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Freshwater Biodiversity ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Albertine Rift ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Freshwater biodiversity is critically understudied in Rwanda, and to date there has not been an efficient mechanism to integrate freshwater biodiversity information or make it accessible to decision-makers, researchers, private sector or communities, where it is needed for planning, management and the implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). A framework to capture and distribute freshwater biodiversity data is crucial to understanding how economic transformation and environmental change is affecting freshwater biodiversity and resulting ecosystem services. To optimize conservation efforts for freshwater ecosystems, detailed information is needed regarding current and historical species distributions and abundances across the landscape. From these data, specific conservation concerns can be identified, analyzed and prioritized. The purpose of this project is to establish and implement a long-term strategy for freshwater biodiversity data mobilization, sharing, processing and reporting in Rwanda. The expected outcome of the project is to support the mandates of the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), the national agency in charge of environmental monitoring and the implementation of Rwanda’s NBSAP, and the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management (CoEB). The project also aligns with the mission of the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) to enhance sustainable management of natural resources in the Albertine rift region. Specifically, organizational structure, technology platforms, and workflows for the biodiversity data capture and mobilization are enhanced to promote data availability and accessibility to improve Rwanda’s NBSAP and support other decision-making processes. The project is enhancing the capacity of technical staff from relevant government and non-government institutions in biodiversity informatics, strengthening the capacity of CoEB to achieve its mission as the Rwandan national biodiversity knowledge management center. Twelve institutions have been identified as data holders and the digitization of these data using Darwin Core standards is in progress, as well as data cleaning for the data publication through the ARCOS Biodiversity Information System (http://arbmis.arcosnetwork.org/). The release of the first national State of Freshwater Biodiversity Report is the next step. CoEB is a registered publisher to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and holds an Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) account on the ARCOS portal. This project was developed for the African Biodiversity Challenge, a competition coordinated by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and funded by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation which supports on-going efforts to enhance the biodiversity information management activities of the GBIF Africa network. This project also aligns with SANBI’s Regional Engagement Strategy, and endeavors to strengthen both emerging biodiversity informatics networks and data management capacity on the continent in support of sustainable development.

scholarly journals Biodiversity Portal of the Northern Part of West Siberia, Russia

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Filippova ◽  
Ilya Filippov ◽  
Natalya Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
West Siberia ◽  
Database Management System ◽  
Nature Reserves ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Biological Collections ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Biodiversity-related studies in the northern part of West Siberia are relatively recent in line with intensive industrial development of the region in recent decades. The region posesses few biological collections within the universities and nature reserves. Still, the Department of Natural Resources pays considerable attention to the sustainable use of natural resources. On the global scale, the success of biodiversity informatics goals largely depends on the local initiatives and progress in data mobilization and sharing. Therefore, organization of regional biodiversity portals is important to promote data mobilization, education and citizen science on local scale. Previous experience of biodiversity information systems in the region was low. The program on digitization of observations of Red Listed species was launched in 2010 under the support of the Department of Natural Resources of Yugra. The information system for Red Listed species registrations was developed through this project and currently includes about three thousand observations. Another example of digitization in Western Siberia was developed by the biological collection of Yugra State University. Its database is based on the database management system Specify and available online through its web portal (http://bioportal.ugrasu.ru). Some collections of nature reserves have their catalogues in digital form. The need of biodiversity data mobilization is well understood and is discussed at regular workshops on biological collections management held in Khanty-Mansiysk. Recently, the biologists curating several biological collections in the region started a project on a regional biodiversity portal development (https://nwsbios.org). The portal has three major components: the database of collections based on Specify software (http://bioportal.ugrasu.ru), the metadata of different sources of biodiversity information in the region, an educational platform for learning biodiversity informatics, using data published via GBIF and DwC standards. the database of collections based on Specify software (http://bioportal.ugrasu.ru), the metadata of different sources of biodiversity information in the region, an educational platform for learning biodiversity informatics, using data published via GBIF and DwC standards. This initiative of biodiversity data mobilization in the region includes the organization of workshops, discussions and newsletters helping to reach potential data holders and coordinate work. Through this work four different organizations from Khanty-Mansi region have registered accounts in GBIF since 2019 and started uploading data to the GBIF portal. At present there are about 25,000 observations mobilized in GBIF from the Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets regions. The integrated massive publishing of data in the portal will provide new opportunities for biodiversity research and sustainable management of nature resources in the northern part of West Siberia.

scholarly journals An inventory of biodiversity data sources for conservation monitoring

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0242923
Author(s):  
P. J. Stephenson ◽  
Carrie Stengel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The People ◽  
Science Community ◽  
Global Data

Many conservation managers, policy makers, businesses and local communities cannot access the biodiversity data they need for informed decision-making on natural resource management. A handful of databases are used to monitor indicators against global biodiversity goals but there is no openly available consolidated list of global data sets to help managers, especially those in high-biodiversity countries. We therefore conducted an inventory of global databases of potential use in monitoring biodiversity states, pressures and conservation responses at multiple levels. We uncovered 145 global data sources, as well as a selection of global data reports, links to which we will make available on an open-access website. We describe trends in data availability and actions needed to improve data sharing. If the conservation and science community made a greater effort to publicise data sources, and make the data openly and freely available for the people who most need it, we might be able to mainstream biodiversity data into decision-making and help stop biodiversity loss.

scholarly journals Making Biodiversity Data Social, Shareable, and Scalable: Reflections on iNaturalist & citizen science

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
Advance Research ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Since 2008, iNaturalist has been crowdsourcing identifications for biodiversity observations collected by citizen scientists. Today iNaturalist has over 25 million records of wild biodiversity with photo or audio evidence, from every country, representing more than 230,000 species, collected by over 700,000 people, and with 90,000 people helping others with identifications. Hundreds of publications have used iNaturalist data to advance research, conservation, and policy. There are three key themes that iNaturalist has embraced: social interaction; shareability of data, tools, and code; and scalability of the platform and community. The keynote will share reflections on what has (and has not) worked for iNaturalist while drawing on other examples from biodiversity informatics and citizen science. Insights about user motivations, synergistic collaborations, and strategic decisions about scaling offer some transferable approaches to address the broadly applicable questions: Which species is represented? How do we make the best use of the available biodiversity information? And how do we build something viable and enduring in the process?

scholarly journals Completeness of Digital Accessible Knowledge of the Plants of Ghana

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Asase ◽  
A. Townsend Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Distance ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Herbarium Data ◽  
Research Grade ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Providing comprehensive, informative, primary, research-grade biodiversity information represents an important focus of biodiversity informatics initiatives. Recent efforts within Ghana have digitized >90% of primary biodiversity data records associated with specimen sheets in Ghanaian herbaria; additional herbarium data are available from other institutions via biodiversity informatics initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. However, data on the plants of Ghana have not as yet been integrated and assessed to establish how complete site inventories are, so that appropriate levels of confidence can be applied. In this study, we assessed inventory completeness and identified gaps in current Digital Accessible Knowledge (DAK) of the plants of Ghana, to prioritize areas for future surveys and inventories. We evaluated the completeness of inventories at ½° spatial resolution using statistics that summarize inventory completeness, and characterized gaps in coverage in terms of geographic distance and climatic difference from well-documented sites across the country. The southwestern and southeastern parts of the country held many well-known grid cells; the largest spatial gaps were found in central and northern parts of the country. Climatic difference showed contrasting patterns, with a dramatic gap in coverage in central-northern Ghana. This study provides a detailed case study of how to prioritize for new botanical surveys and inventories based on existing DAK.

scholarly journals A Google Sheet Add-on for Biodiversity Data Standardization and Sharing

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Augusto Salim ◽  
Antonio Saraiva
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Data Sharing ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Data Standardization ◽  
Darwin Core ◽  
Rest Api ◽  
Biodiversity Information

For those biologists and biodiversity data managers who are unfamiliar with information science data practices of data standardization, the use of complex software to assist in the creation of standardized datasets can be a barrier to sharing data. Since the ratification of the Darwin Core Standard (DwC) (Darwin Core Task Group 2009) by the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) in 2009, many datasets have been published and shared through a variety of data portals. In the early stages of biodiversity data sharing, the protocol Distributed Generic Information Retrieval (DiGIR), progenitor of DwC, and later the protocols BioCASe and TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval (TAPIR) (De Giovanni et al. 2010) were introduced for discovery, search and retrieval of distributed data, simplifying data exchange between information systems. Although these protocols are still in use, they are known to be inefficient for transferring large amounts of data (GBIF 2017). Because of that, in 2011 the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) introduced the Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which allows more efficient data transfer, and has become the preferred format for publishing data in the GBIF network. DwC-A is a structured collection of text files, which makes use of the DwC terms to produce a single, self-contained dataset. Many tools for assisting data sharing using DwC-A have been introduced, such as the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) (Robertson et al. 2014), the Darwin Core Archive Assistant (GBIF 2010) and the Darwin Core Archive Validator. Despite promoting and facilitating data sharing, many users have difficulties using such tools, mainly because of the lack of training in information science in the biodiversity curriculum (Convention on Biological Diversiity 2012, Enke et al. 2012). However, most users are very familiar with spreadsheets to store and organize their data, but the adoption of the available solutions requires data transformation and training in information science and more specifically, biodiversity informatics. For an example of how spreadsheets can simplify data sharing see Stoev et al. (2016). In order to provide a more "familiar" approach to data sharing using DwC-A, we introduce a new tool as a Google Sheet Add-on. The Add-on, called Darwin Core Archive Assistant Add-on can be installed in the user's Google Account from the G Suite MarketPlace and used in conjunction with the Google Sheets application. The Add-on assists the mapping of spreadsheet columns/fields to DwC terms (Fig. 1), similar to IPT, but with the advantage that it does not require the user to export the spreadsheet and import it into another software. Additionally, the Add-on facilitates the creation of a star schema in accordance with DwC-A, by the definition of a "CORE_ID" (e.g. occurrenceID, eventID, taxonID) field between sheets of a document (Fig. 2). The Add-on also provides an Ecological Metadata Language (EML) (Jones et al. 2019) editor (Fig. 3) with minimal fields to be filled in (i.e., mandatory fields required by IPT), and helps users to generate and share DwC-Archives stored in the user's Google Drive, which can be downloaded as a DwC-A or automatically uploaded to another public storage resource like a user's Zenodo Account (Fig. 4). We expect that the Google Sheet Add-on introduced here, in conjunction with IPT, will promote biodiversity data sharing in a standardized format, as it requires minimal training and simplifies the process of data sharing from the user's perspective, mainly for those users not familiar with IPT, but that historically have worked with spreadsheets. Although the DwC-A generated by the add-on still needs to be published using IPT, it does provide a simpler interface (i.e., spreadsheet) for mapping data sets to DwC than IPT. Even though the IPT includes many more features than the Darwin Core Assistant Add-on, we expect that the Add-on can be a "starting point" for users unfamiliar with biodiversity informatics before they move on to more advanced data publishing tools. On the other hand, Zenodo integration allows users to share and cite their standardized data sets without publishing them via IPT, which can be useful for users without access to an IPT installation. Additionally, we are working on new features and future releases will include the automatic generation of Global Unique Identifiers for shared records, the possibility of adding additional data standards and DwC extensions, integration with GBIF REST API and with IPT REST API.

scholarly journals Outlook of Biodiversity Informatics in Benin: Main achievements

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Ganglo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Ecological Niche ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Master Program ◽  
Occurrence Data ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Benin became member of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) in 2004 and acceded to the status of voting member in 2011. GBIF Benin through the constant efforts of its node is now very active in GBIF community with respect to capacity building, data mobilization and data uses. GBIF Benin published more than 400 000 occurrence data from about 125 datasets on GBIF portal . As for capacity building, GBIF Benin yearly organizes at least 2 (two) workshops to enhance the capacities of national and regional partners in data mobilization and data uses. At regional level, GBIF Benin is leading a consortium of many countries (Senegal, Côte-d’Ivoire, Niger, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, and Madagascar etc.) to help overcome the challenges of data mobilization and data uses at regional level. From the academic year 2017-2018, GBIF Benin, through its node manager, successfully cooperated with the University of Kansas to create a master program in biodiversity informatics. Biodiversity informatics is a field of investigation relatively new in science and is concerned with massive occurrence data collection on biodiversity as well as on environment; data treatments, analysis, and representations so as to derive sound research products to inform decisions on biodiversity conservation and sustainable uses in the context of climate and global changes. In Benin, the master program in biodiversity informatics is a permanent two-year program structured in teaching units with the following contents: 1) Basics concepts of biodiversity; 2) Biodiversity data capture; 3) Biodiversity inventories; 4) Biodiversity data analysis; 5) Climate change and biodiversity; 6) Ecological niche modeling and strategies for biodiversity conservation; 7) Data-science-policy interface; 8) Public Health and Applications of biodiversity data etc. At completion of their studies, students graduated in the program will be capacitated so as to achieve the following innovative objectives: 1) Use Geographic Information System to map spatial distribution of species; 2) Model the current and the future ecological niche of species in the context of climate and global changes; 3) Characterize biodiversity on scales ranging from local to global; 4) Assess geographic patterns among suites of species (i.e., communities); 5) Refine the knowledge on particular taxonomic groups; 6) Define priority zones of biodiversity conservation; 7) Develop strategies of species conservation; 8) Implement biodiversity conservation strategies; 9) Predict the risks of propagation of infectious diseases (Lassa fever, Ebola fever etc.) which vectors are living organisms, so as to support preventive actions, etc. With such capacities, the graduated students of the master program are obviously the new generation of biodiversity information scientists who are able to address the needs of information so as to contribute to biodiversity conservation and its sustainable uses. Furthermore, in their respective countries and the rest of Africa, they will successfully contribute to the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the United Nations in 2015. With respect to data uses, more and more research products are piling up in Benin and are being integrated into decision makers’ arena. In 2018, the results of our data uses were integrated in the elaboration of the second communication on climate change of Benin.

scholarly journals From Expert to Data-Driven Biodiversity Knowledge: Assessing ecosystem irreplaceability with IUCN Red List data for freshwater fish 

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imanol Miqueleiz ◽  
Arturo H. Ariño ◽  
Rafael Miranda
Keyword(s):  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Fish Fauna ◽  
Iucn Red List ◽  
Freshwater Ecosystems ◽  
Red List ◽  
Conservation Priorities ◽  
Freshwater Biodiversity ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Critical as they are for humans and nature, freshwater ecosystems are threatened—but the extent and depth of these threats are not well understood, especially if essential biodiversity data are lacking. Any policy aimed at protecting such ecosystems must first assess the threat factors and the potential harm, well before proposing conservation measures such as the creation and development of Protected Areas (PAs). These assessments must be done using a deep and sound knowledge of the actual and potential biodiversity variables. Freshwater ecosystems have been largely neglected in traditional PA design and management (Abell et al. 2007), be it for scarcity of biodiversity data, or for more perception-related reasons such as visibility and accessibility driving the allocation of conservation resources to more data-rich environments. In an effort to contribute to shifting this state of affairs, we have developed an irreplaceability index to identify the most relevant places to achieve conservation aims for freshwater fish, based on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which, in turn, should be founded on available biodiversity data upon which expert knowledge is based (Le Saout 2013). However, we found large assessment gaps in the IUCN Red List for freshwater fish. These gaps may result from the non-systematic acquisition of primary biodiversity data, which could eventually be alleviated by coordinated policies promoting ecosystem surveys tailored at increasing the availability and spread of such data, while identifying, targeting and prioritizing hotspots. Obtaining valid conclusions from low-assessment areas such as South America, which are simultaneously biodiversity and endangerment hotspots (Collen 2014), is particularly troublesome. Building an irreplaceability index requires access to abundant, fine-scale biodiversity data. When combined with the assessment information available in the IUCN Red List, we can identify those areas where low assessment rates for highly irreplaceable rivers become keystones to protect freshwater biodiversity, and can therefore suggest actions for policy makers to take at both regional and local scales. In particular, we have thus identified those irreplaceable rivers that fall outside the current net of PAs. In a context of inadequate investment in biodiversity conservation (Juffe-Bignoli et al. 2016), our findings and the informatics-powered methods we propose, will hopefully help decision makers establish conservation priorities and allocate funds to preserve irreplaceable rivers and their fish fauna. Furthermore, the necessity of improving the IUCN Red List in low-assessed areas, requires synergies among IUCN, Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and conservation scientists to achieve accurate and reliable assessments.

scholarly journals Biodiversity Informatics in Brazil: A personal perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Saraiva ◽  
Bruno Albertini
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Global South ◽  
Biological Data ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Personal Perspective ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Large Country ◽  
Biodiversity Science ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Brazilian Biodiversity

Biodiversity informatics (BI) plays an important role in helping us know, protect and use biodiversity sustainably. It encompasses activities from data digitization, standardization, sharing and aggregation, to supporting decision and policy making. In a country like Brazil, with a large continental geographic area containing ca. 15% of the planet’s biodiversity, the challenge is even greater: stakeholders are widely distributed over a large country and the amount of data is huge. Brazil has been a part of the international BI community, including Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), for around two decades. Initially represented solely by the Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental (CRIA), gradually other groups from universities, museums and institutions joined the arena. Despite the broader group of stakeholders now involved, the local community is not strong enough. From a human resources point of view, the country has very good universities that train competent professionals both in information technology (IT) and in biology or related fields. Concerning the IT professionals, not surprisingly, other industries and job opportunities are usually more attractive and few people even know about BI. This is probably not unique to Brazil. Biological sciences professionals, for their part, usually have little literacy in computing and are equally unaware of BI as a field. On the institutional level, museums, universities and other biological data owners often lack IT support for biological data management, including digitization, and systems development/maintenance. This may reflect the lack of appreciation of the importance of data and of BI as a foundation for good biodiversity science and management. The same happens when it comes to funding. Biological collections are not adequately funded and lack more than a few episodic programs to support collection and museum maintenance and digitization. This lack of infrastructural funding highlights the tragedies of the fires at the Butantan Museum in 2010 (80,000 snakes, 180,000 spiders) and the Museu Nacional in 2018, (20 million biological specimens and objects of the Brazilian and world history and art were lost). The exception is the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), which has been supporting projects since 1999 on biodiversity and BI via its successful Biota-FAPESP program, the first to tie biodiversity projects to data digitization and sharing in Brazil. The lack of institutional engagement and support, and funding affects the sustainability of many initiatives and puts at risk the long term data availability. Due to political reasons, Brazil only joined the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) in 2012 as an associate (non-contributing financially and non-voting) member with a commitment to become a voting member within five years. Until recently, the Brazilian Biodiversity Information System (SiBBr), Brazil’s GBIF node, was also hindered by politics from having a solid, stable national governance and funding to help “consolidate a solid national infrastructure on biodiversity data”, and to unite the growing Brazilian BI community around it. In the international scenario, while political, cultural and funding reasons may have hindered more equitable collaborations (e.g., tools development and sharing) with countries in the Global South, competing Global North-centric projects have prevailed. Although most remaining biodiversity is in the Global South, where local engagement is crucial, in many cases southern partners still often only act as data providers. Collaborative work is required with genuine co-creation, empowering all parties. Initiatives like the Living Atlases community must be recognized and welcomed as a positive shift. Despite all of these challenges, it can be surprising how much Brazilian biodiversity science has achieved throughout the years, and it gives us hope that in the future, if some of these issues are addressed, a lot more can be done. Education and training, continued funding and institutional support, governance, and international collaboration are essential.

scholarly journals Game of Tops: Trends in GBIF’s Community of Users

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora Escribano ◽  
David Galicia ◽  
Arturo H. Ariño
Keyword(s):  
Information Exchange ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Building on the development of Biodiversity Informatics, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) undertook the task of enabling access to the world’s wealth of biodiversity data via the Internet. To date, GBIF has become, in many respects, the most extensive biodiversity information exchange infrastructure in the world, opening up a full range of possibilities for science. Science has benefited from such access to biodiversity data in research areas ranging from the effects of environmental change on biodiversity to the spread of invasive species, among many others. As of this writing, more than 7,000 published items (scientific papers, reviews, conference proceedings) have been indexed in the GBIF Secretariat’s literature tracking programme. On the basis on this database, we will represent trends in GBIF in the users’ behaviour over time regarding openness, social structure, and other features associated to such scientific production: what is the measurable impact of research using GBIF data? How is the GBIF community of users growing? Is the science made with, and enabled by, open data, actually open? Mapping GBIF users’ choices will show how biodiversity research is evolving through time, synthesising past and current priorities of this community in an attempt to forecast whether summer—or winter—is coming.

scholarly journals Data Leakage and Loss in Biodiversity Informatics

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Townsend Peterson ◽  
Alex Asase ◽  
Dora Canhos ◽  
Sidnei de Souza ◽  
John Wieczorek
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Information Resources ◽  
Biodiversity Informatics ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Data Record ◽  
Crucial Information ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Digital Record ◽  
Data Usability

The field of biodiversity informatics is in a massive, “grow-out” phase of creating and enabling large-scale biodiversity data resources. Because perhaps 90% of existing biodiversity data nonetheless remains unavailable for science and policy applications, the question arises as to how these existing and available data records can be mobilized most efficiently and effectively. This situation led to our analysis of several large-scale biodiversity datasets regarding birds and plants, detecting information gaps and documenting data “leakage” or attrition, in terms of data on taxon, time, and place, in each data record. We documented significant data leakage in each data dimension in each dataset. That is, significant numbers of data records are lacking crucial information in terms of taxon, time, and/or place; information on place was consistently the least complete, such that geographic referencing presently represents the most significant factor in degradation of usability of information from biodiversity information resources. Although the full process of digital capture, quality control, and enrichment is important to developing a complete digital record of existing biodiversity information, payoffs in terms of immediate data usability will be greatest with attention paid to the georeferencing challenge.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document