Published June 9, 2017 | Version v1
Journal article Open

The Biodiversity Informatics Landscape: Elements, Connections and Opportunities

Authors/Creators

  • 1. UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • 2. Museum fuer Naturkunde , Berlin, GermanyMuseum fuer Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Berlin, Germany
  • 3. Botanic Garden Meise, Meise, Belgium
  • 4. The Biodiversity Consultancy, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  • 5. Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, Oostende, Belgium
  • 6. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • 7. Botanic Garden Meise, Meise, BelgiumRoyal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium
  • 8. Plazi, Bern, Switzerland
  • 9. Pensoft Publishers & Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
  • 10. Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity, Berlin, Germany
  • 11. University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
  • 12. Group on Earth Observations, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 13. National Institute of Ecology, Seocheon, Korea, South
  • 14. Global Biodiversity Information Facility France, Paris, France
  • 15. Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany
  • 16. Environmental Research Center (UFZ) Halle, Leipzig, Germany
  • 17. Tour du Valat, Research Institute for the conservation of Mediterranean Wetlands, Arles, France
  • 18. CSIC, Spanish Council for Scientific Research, Seville, Spain
  • 19. Group on Earth Observations - Biodiversity Observation Network, Leipzig, Germany
  • 20. Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 21. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
  • 22. Norwegian Biodiversity Information Centre, Trondheim, Norway

Description

There are a multitude of biodiversity informatics projects, datasets, databases and initiatives at the global level, and many more at regional, national, and sometimes local levels. In such a complex landscape, it can be unclear how different elements relate to each other. Based on a high-level review of global and European-level elements, we present a map of the biodiversity informatics landscape. This is a first attempt at identifying key datasets/databases and data services, and mapping them in a way that can be used to identify the links, gaps and redundancies in the landscape. While the map is predominantly focused on elements with a global scope, the sub-global focus at the European-level was incorporated in the map in order to demonstrate how a regional network such as the European Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON) can usefully contribute to connecting some of the nodes within the landscape. We identify 74 elements, and find that the informatics landscape is complex in terms of the characteristics and diversity of these elements, and that there is high variability in their level of connectedness. Overall, the landscape is highly connected, with one element boasting 28 connections. The average "degrees of separation" between elements is low, and the landscape is deemed relatively robust to failures since there is no single point that information flows through. Examples of possible effort duplication are presented, and the inclusion of five policy-level elements in the map helps illustrate how informatics products can contribute to global processes that define and direct political targets. Beyond simply describing the existing landscape, this map will support a better understanding of the landscape's current structure and functioning, enabling responsible institutions to establish or strengthen collaborations, work towards avoiding effort duplication, and facilitate access to the biodiversity data, information and knowledge required to support effective decision-making, in the context of comparatively limited funding for biodiversity knowledge and conservation. To support this, we provide the input matrix and code that created this map as supplementary materials, so that readers can more closely examine the links in the landscape, and edit the map to suit their own purposes.

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