GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION FACILITY Dr Nick King Executive Director GBIF GBIF’s contributions to overcoming the biodiversity informatics challenges raised at eBiosphere Building the Biodiversity Informatics Commons TDWG Annual Conference 9-13 Nov 2009

Key issues from e-B 3-day conf “The biodiversity informatics community should: 1. ensure maximum interoperability among as many kinds of data as possible; 2. Be based on community‐wide standards and a solid taxonomic foundation; 3. Be comprehensive in coverage and global in scope; 4. Aggressively bring large amounts of both new and existing data into the digital realm where they are easily accessed; and 5. Provide free and open access to biodiversity data and information. “

Context Third year of Strategic Plan 07-11, of moving GBIF ”from prototype towards full operation” Strategic Plan, to: 1.Make a whole world of biodiversity data that are currently exceedingly difficult to access freely and universally available via the Internet; 2.Enable scientific research that has never before been possible; and 3.Facilitate the use of scientific data in biodiversity policy- and decision-making.

2-day Workshop Resolution “The workshop attendees endorsed the following resolution as a summary statement from the e‐Biosphere 09 Conference and as a further step toward broad, community‐based action: 1.It was evident at e‐Biosphere 09 that significant progress has been made in all of the above areas. It was equally apparent that the biodiversity informatics community should increase efforts to network people, tools, databases and workflows. 2.The workshop participants called for the further development of an inclusive, broadly based, open coalition. This coalition would collaboratively promote activities designed to rapidly improve the capability of biodiversity informatics to contribute to societal goals.”

The key BI challenge  How to get the BI community communicating more, collaborating more, and working on common goals more;  Need a big picture vision of what we are trying to achieve, so all can buy into it;  Challenge is more sociological than technical…

Key issues eB 2-day workshop The eB Resolution high-level objectives: 1. Creating a seamlessly connected virtual laboratory or platform for integrating, synthesizing, and analyzing biodiversity information; 2. Promoting linkages with user communities that would use the platform to better model and understand the entire biodiversity of the globe; and 3. Developing and disseminating a periodic outlook report on biodiversity informatics that would assess the status and future of the field. An effective system of community-wide consultation and communication will be essential to achieve this

Priorities to continue/expand 1. Creating durable, global registries for the resources that are basic to biodiversity informatics (e.g., repositories, collections); 2. Completing the construction of a solid taxonomic infrastructure… …in order to support the development of the global names architecture (GNA); 3. Creating ontologies for biodiversity data; 4. Developing an approach to the citation of published data and information services; and 5. Implementing active and effective outreach to the policy and research domains that rely on biodiversity informatics as a resource.

1. Registries Complete durable global registries of biodiversity informatics resources.  GBIF is leading the development of the Global Biodiversity Resources Discovery System (GBRDS) as the primary source of registration for resources and services combined with a set of discovery services.  The recommendations of the Metadata Task Group included guidelines on implementation of metadata standards, applications and a decentralised network.  Following the recommendations of the GBIF LSID-GUID Task Group, GBIF is now implementing the use of DOI (Digital Object Identifiers) for data-paper publication and discovery (in the GBRDS) and investigating DOI use in other applications. GBIF is leading the implementation of a comprehensive biodiversity resources registry for enabling universal resources discovery.

2. Taxonomic infrastructure/GNA Complete the construction of a solid taxonomic infrastructure through the development of checklists and the catalogue of life for all groups of organism s, in order to support the development of the global names architecture.  GBIF is leading the development of the Global Names Architecture (GNA) in partnership with PESI, EOL, Index Fungorum, CoL, WoRMS, etc.  GBIF is supporting the development of tools and services that facilitate the processing and resolution of biodiversity data and organism names and integration with other taxonomic resources. GBIF is extending our global infrastructure to facilitate the development and incorporation of the Global Names Architecture.

3. Ontology Development Invest in ontology development and engage with the ontology community, with the goal of developing biodiversity related ontologies that fill the nee ds of identified user communities.  GBIF and TDWG are collaborating on extending the GBIF vocabularies platform ( to accommodate the TDWG vocabularies/ontology (and others, e.g. languages…);  An experts workshop on “biodiversity ontologies” is planned for mid with the objective to scope the development of a comprehensive biodiversity ontology building on existing initiatives. Building on existing work, GBIF and TDWG will engage with the wider community in 2010 to expand the development and integration of biodiversity ontologies.

4. Citation Develop an approach to the citation of published data and information services that will enable the impact of electronic data provision and biodiversity informatics to be documented objectively.  The GBIF Data Publishing Framework Task Group (DPFTG) is providing recommendations on how to address cultural changes towards free and open access to primary biodiversity data.  The objective is the institutionalisation of a mechanism for measuring the impact of data publishing in the form of a ‘Data Usage Index’.  DPFTG are making recommendations on ‘deep data’ (record-level) citation mechanisms in addition to dataset citation.  Use of DOI to enable improved citation and incentivise data publication GBIF is developing citation solutions to incentivise and mainstream data publishing.

5. Outreach to Policy and Research Implement active and effective outreach to the policy and research domains that relies on biodiversity informatics as a resource.  In 2009, GBIF has been proactive in promoting the use of biodiversity data in support of the development of improved policy, specifically in relation to. Climate Change on forestry, fisheries and agriculture Invasive species Biodiversity and sustainability assessments Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) National-level reporting to Multilateral Environmental Agreements e.g. CBD, CMS, CITES, Ramsar, etc… The GBIF network is a unique multi-country infrastructure that is helping bridge the science-policy interface and underpin policy research in a variety of domains.

6. Outlook on biodiversity informatics Develop and disseminate an outlook report on biodiversity informatics on a periodic basis, to assess the status and future of the field.  GBIF provides a unique forum to convene mechanisms such as Task Groups to address topics of critical interest to the biodiversity informatics community e.g. in 08/09:  LSID-GUID TG; Metadata implementation Framework TG; Multimedia Resources TG; Data Publishing Framework TG; Global Strategy and Action Plan for the Digitisation of Natural History Collections TG; Content Needs Assessment TG; Observation Data TG;  …more to come in 2010… GBIF in 2009 implemented a Participant Reporting System to enable a comprehensive picture of all activities within the GBIF community GBIF provides the means to gather key thematic information, and to obtain a comprehensive overview of global BI activities

7. Communication mechanism Develop and maintain a communication mechanism that will engage and promote collaboration among all relevant stakeholders in biodiversity informatics.  GBIF is an open‐ended multi-country agreement to establish an inter governmental organization focussed on BI.  GBIF currently comprises 53 countries and 43 international organsiaitons (incl. TDWG).  GBIF already provides a sound communication mechanism through members and the wider biodiversity informatics community.  GBIF already provides a unique infrastructure to further communication, collaboration and outreach. GBIF provides the largest open-access, global biodiversity information infrastructure and means for communication through both governmental and non-governmental channels – this can be expanded according to community needs

+ Outlook + Communication GBIF - creating a coherent whole for BI 5. Outreach 1. Registries 2. GNA 4. Citation 3. Ontologies

Management, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity Policy development and decision making (at local, national, regional, and global levels) Scientific monitoring of status and trends of biodiversity GBIF-published data and analyses The Science-Policy Interface

Influencing Policy - Japan l Large- and small-mouth bass introduced from N. America; predatory, huge impact on indigenous spp. l Japanese policymakers needed to know which areas of the country are most at risk from invasion l Used N. American locality data (from GBIF) to establish EN, applied ENM to Japan and tested with (GBIF) locality records – very high correlation. l Instrumental in convincing authorities to develop IAS Act Iguchi, K., et al Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, 133: The Japanese Diet passed its IAS Act in June 2004; first list of IAS, based on Act, passed in June 2005.

Access to GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION can only be achieved by all in the BI community working together – GBIF comprises the mechanism, that’s what GBIF was established for!