Data hosting infrastructure for primary biodiversity data

© The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in BMC Bioinformatics 12 Suppl. 15 (2011): S5, doi:10.1186/1471-2105-12-S15-S5.Today, an unprecedented volume of primary biodiversity data are being generated worldwide, yet significant amounts of these data have been and will continue to be lost after the conclusion of the projects tasked with collecting them. To get the most value out of these data it is imperative to seek a solution whereby these data are rescued, archived and made available to the biodiversity community. To this end, the biodiversity informatics community requires investment in processes and infrastructure to mitigate data loss and provide solutions for long-term hosting and sharing of biodiversity data. We review the current state of biodiversity data hosting and investigate the technological and sociological barriers to proper data management. We further explore the rescuing and re-hosting of legacy data, the state of existing toolsets and propose a future direction for the development of new discovery tools. We also explore the role of data standards and licensing in the context of data hosting and preservation. We provide five recommendations for the biodiversity community that will foster better data preservation and access: (1) encourage the community's use of data standards, (2) promote the public domain licensing of data, (3) establish a community of those involved in data hosting and archival, (4) establish hosting centers for biodiversity data, and (5) develop tools for data discovery. The community's adoption of standards and development of tools to enable data discovery is essential to sustainable data preservation. Furthermore, the increased adoption of open content licensing, the establishment of data hosting infrastructure and the creation of a data hosting and archiving community are all necessary steps towards the community ensuring that data archival policies become standardized

Bridging the biodiversity data gaps: Recommendations to meet users’ data needs

A strong case has been made for freely available, high quality data on species occurrence, in order to track changes in biodiversity. However, one of the main issues surrounding the provision of such data is that sources vary in quality, scope, and accuracy. Therefore publishers of such data must face the challenge of maximizing quality, utility and breadth of data coverage, in order to make such data useful to users. Here, we report a number of recommendations that stem from a content need assessment survey conducted by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Through this survey, we aimed to distil the main user needs regarding biodiversity data. We find a broad range of recommendations from the survey respondents, principally concerning issues such as data quality, bias, and coverage, and extending ease of access. We recommend a candidate set of actions for the GBIF that fall into three classes: 1) addressing data gaps, data volume, and data quality, 2) aggregating new kinds of data for new applications, and 3) promoting ease-of-use and providing incentives for wider use. Addressing the challenge of providing high quality primary biodiversity data can potentially serve the needs of many international biodiversity initiatives, including the new 2020 biodiversity targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the emerging global biodiversity observation network (GEO BON), and the new Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

Show Me The Data: An Evaluation Of Data Access In The JRS Grant Portfolio

In order to be useful for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, biodiversity information must be not only available, but also accessible.The JRS Biodiversity Foundation contracted an independent study to assess the level to which data produced by JRS-funded projects were discoverable online, and the ease with which those data could be viewed or downloaded. Only about half of the expected data products were viewable or discoverable online, and in many cases data were not clearly connected with project results. Data accessibility was not dependent on the country in which the project was located, and hasn't changed over time. Interviews with grantees helped to identify challenges to and enabling conditions for creating sharable data products. JRS is actively responding to the findings of this study through new planning tools to support future grantees and a data sharing policy that explicitly supports open access to data and data publication to well-recognized and secure repositories

Data fluidity in DARIAH -- pushing the agenda forward

This paper provides both an update concerning the setting up of the European DARIAH infrastructure and a series of strong action lines related to the development of a data centred strategy for the humanities in the coming years. In particular we tackle various aspect of data management: data hosting, the setting up of a DARIAH seal of approval, the establishment of a charter between cultural heritage institutions and scholars and finally a specific view on certification mechanisms for data

Floodplain management in temperate regions : is multifunctionality enhancing biodiversity?

Background: Floodplains are among the most diverse, dynamic, productive and populated but also the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. Threats are mainly related to human activities that alter the landscape and disrupt fluvial processes to obtain benefits related to multiple ecosystem services (ESS). Floodplain management therefore requires close coordination among interest groups with competing claims and poses multi-dimensional challenges to policy-makers and project managers. The European Commission proposed in its recent Biodiversity Strategy to maintain and enhance European ecosystems and their services by establishing green infrastructure (GI). GI is assumed to provide multiple ecosystem functions and services including the conservation of biodiversity in the same spatial area. However, evidence for biodiversity benefits of multifunctional floodplain management is scattered and has not been synthesised. Methods/design: This protocol specifies the methods for conducting a systematic review to answer the following policy-relevant questions: a) what is the impact of floodplain management measures on biodiversity; b) how does the impact vary according to the level of multifunctionality of the measures; c) is there a difference in the biodiversity impact of floodplain management across taxa; d) what is the effect of the time since implementation on the impact of the most important measures; and e) are there any other factors that significantly modify the biodiversity impact of floodplain management measures? Within this systematic review we will assess multifunctionality in terms of ESS that are affected by an implemented intervention. Biodiversity indicators included in this systematic review will be related to the diversity, richness and abundance of species, other taxa or functional groups. We will consider if organisms are typical for and native to natural floodplain ecosystems. Specific inclusion criteria have been developed and the wide range of quality of primary literature will be evaluated with a tailor-made system for assessing susceptibility to bias and the reliability of the studies. The review is intended to bridge the science-policy interface and will provide a useful synthesis of knowledge for decision-makers at all governance levels

A scoping assessment for a national research centre addressing land use and food security issues

This report proposes a Centre for Land Use and Land Resources to conduct an Australian program of work on agricultural land use and food security analysis, linked to international efforts.SummaryInternationally, food security and the sustainability of productive land resources have been identified as key issues driving the need for improved information on land use change and land resources.This study reports on perspectives on land use and food security issues gained through consultations with international and Australian institutions and individuals, including the relationship between land use and food security. It also scopes Australia’s potential contribution to addressing global food security concerns, including the potential for an Australian-based Centre for Land Use and Food Security as a facility associated with the Global Land Project (GLP). The GLP is an international program aimed at analysing changes in land systems arising from human-induced global change.The review determined that land use and land use change impacts on a broad range of natural resource and ecosystem services sustainability issues – including water management, biodiversity protection, urban planning development, carbon management and responding to climate variability. Although the nexus between land use and food security is strong and is of particular interest, there are broader interests and needs regarding national capacity in land use research.It is argued that this broader range of needs, including food security, could be improved by focusing Australia’s capacity to analyse and track land use change particularly in relation to our productive land assets. This would address the Australian Farm Institute’s recent call for improved data and analysis to assess land use change and agricultural production potential.The study proposes the establishment of a Centre for Land Use and Land Resources. This centre could be a virtual organisation, operating on a collaborative basis and drawing on the expertise of Australian agencies and research institutions with allied interests and objectives. It could initiate an Australian program of work linked to international efforts on agricultural land use and food security analysis and make an important contribution to global activities linking food security, land use and land resources risk assessment, particularly the development of protocols for tracking and forecasting change and the development of tools to assist decision making.Within this network a Nodal Office of the GLP with a focus on land use and food security could be hosted out of a leading research or academic institution, linking the relevant researchers in government research agencies and universities with international collaborators. Research could be aimed at key gaps in the GLP research agenda, such as international trends in food, fibre and fuel, and the sustainability of land resources.It is suggested that the options for hosting a Centre for Land Use and Land Resources be explored with national institutions with interest and capacity in the land use and land resources sciences field. ABARES is well positioned to continue playing a leadership role for the Australian Government, building on established collaborative arrangements and with a continuing focus on promoting national consistency in land use data, information and analysis to support policy and programs.It is proposed that ABARES establish a working group comprising representatives from potential partners in a Centre for Land Use and Land Resources (including, CSIRO, TERN, key universities, NCLUMI and NCST) to further explore options for its establishment, including structure, partnership arrangements, research agenda work-plan and funding

The Freshwater Information Platform: a global online network providing data, tools and resources for science and policy support

Freshwaters are among the most complex, dynamic, and diverse ecosystems globally. Despite their small share of the earth’s surface (less than 1%) they are home to over 10% of all known animal species. Biodiversity decrease in general and freshwater biodiversity decline in particular have recently received increasing attention, and various policy instruments are now targeting the conservation, protection and enhancement of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Surveillance programs as well as a variety of research projects have been producing a tremendous amount of freshwater-related information. Though there have been various attempts to build infrastructures for online collection of such data, tools and reports, they often provide only limited access to resources that can readily be extracted for conducting large scale analyses. Here, we present the Freshwater Information Platform, an open system of relevant freshwater biodiversity-related information. We provide a comprehensive overview of the platform’s core components, highlight their values, present options for their use, and discuss future developments. This is complemented by information on the platform’s current management structure, options for contributing data and research results and an outlook for the future