Press release
29 September 2014
Global biodiversity research infrastructures team together
Research infrastructures around the world supporting advanced biodiversity research teamed
together to agree on common priorities and interoperability. Never before such a global
collaboration considered how to best provide the data and Internet tools to advance our
understanding of our living environment.
Biodiversity includes all organisms both on land and in water, from microscopic bacteria to the
larger plants and animals. Research on biodiversity is addressing how these organisms live
together and are shaping out planet. As such biodiversity research is depending on data –
observations and measurements – from all over the world. Similarly, policy and companies are
depending on research data and scientific results to decide on serving our well being with
respect to fresh water, food, building materials, medicine and others.
A EU funded project did bring these research infrastructures together to serve digital data with
software tools to analyze and model the data. The project “Coordination of Research eInfrastructures Activities Toward an International Virtual Environment for Biodiversity”
(Creative-B) explored a number of issues to better serve global research. Resulting
recommendations are covering common global priorities, the promotion infrastructure
interoperability, and legal and governance implications.
A strong global priority is to support the “Essential Biodiversity Variables” as endorsed by the
GEOSS, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. Infrastructure interoperability is
feasible, although different national Internet security systems may prohibit easy access to all
essential resources for researchers. From the legal point of view there are not major restrictions
in sharing data and resources. However, the conditions for sharing are often quite different. This
is an obstacle in running automated analysis of data and software tools from different resources
since the interaction between computer systems is too dependent on time-consuming human
interventions.
The cooperating biodiversity research infrastructures agreed on a joint Roadmap with
recommendations. The Roadmap is offering an analysis of challenges and opportunities with
potential solutions.
The roadmap can be accessed here:
http://creative-b.eu/documents/10826/8381f863-226c-40a1-a355-77ecc448f9b4.
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Funded by the European Commission with Grant agreement n°: 284441
More information:
Jacco Konijn; j.l.konijn@uva.nl; +31205257816
The cooperating research infrastructures are:
LifeWatch: The Europe based LifeWatch infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research is
in development to provide virtual environments, enabling integrated access to data, analytical and
modelling workflows and computational capacity. It is a new approach for large-scale cooperation
in simulation and scenario development experiments. www.lifewatch.eu
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF): Through a global network of countries and
organizations, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) encourages free and open access
to biodiversity data, and promotes and facilitates the mobilization, access, discovery and use of
information about the occurrence of organisms over time and across the planet. www.gbif.org
Atlas of Living Australia (ALA): In Australia, the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) contains
information on all known living species in Australia, aggregated from a wide range of data
providers: museums, herbaria, community groups, government departments, individuals and
universities. www.ala.org.au
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS): CAS is China’s government organisation, founded in Beijing
on 1 November 1949, as the nation’s highest academic institution in natural sciences and its
supreme scientific and technological advisory body, and national comprehensive research and
development centre in natural sciences and high technologies. The CAS Biodiversity Committee
oversees the operations of biodiversity infrastructures in China. The CAS Germplasm Bank of Wild
Species (GBoWS) is one of the 11 large research infrastructures managed by the Chinese Academy
of Sciences (CAS). CAS is hosting the World Data Centre for Microorganisms. english.cas.cn
WFCC: The WFCC is a Multidisciplinary Commission of the International Union of Biological
Sciences (IUBS) and a Federation within the International Union of Microbiological Societies
(IUMS). The WFCC is concerned with the collection, authentication, maintenance and distribution of
cultures of microorganisms and cultured cells. Its aim is to promote and support the establishment
of culture collections and related services, to provide liaison and set up an information network
between the collections and their users, to organise workshops and conferences, publications and
newsletters and work to ensure the long term perpetuation of important collections.
www.wfcc.info
DataONE: In the USA, the Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) is developing the future
foundations for environmental sciences with a distributed framework and sustainable einfrastructure that meets the needs of science and society for open, persistent, robust, and secure
access to well-described and easily discovered earth observational data. www.dataone.org
NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network): NEON is a continental-scale observatory that
measures the causes and effects of climate change, land use change and invasive species on U.S.
ecosystems. We provide freely available data, educational resources and scientific infrastructure
for research. www.neoninc.org
CRIA: In Brazil, the Reference Centre on Environmental Information (CRIA ) aggregates and
disseminates biological information of environmental and industrial interest, as a means of
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Funded by the European Commission with Grant agreement n°: 284441
organising the scientific and technological community of the country towards conservation and
sustainable use of Brazil’s biological resources. www.cria.org.br
SANBI: The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) leads and coordinates research,
monitors and reports on the state of biodiversity in South Africa. Providing biodiversity
information is central to SANBI’s mandate and it does this by providing several databases and other
resources developed by SANBI and its partners. www.sanbi.org
GEO BON (Global Earth Observation - Biodiversity Observation Network): The Group on Earth
Observations Biodiversity Observation Network – GEO BON – coordinates activities relating to the
Societal Benefit Area (SBA) on Biodiversity of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems
(GEOSS). Some 100 governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations are
collaborating through GEO BON to organize and improve terrestrial, freshwater and marine
biodiversity observations globally and make their biodiversity data, information and forecasts
more readily accessible. www.earthobservations.org/geobon.shtml
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Funded by the European Commission with Grant agreement n°: 284441