GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION FACILITY Dr. Eric Gilman, GBIF Dr. Eric Gilman, GBIFBuilding the Biodiversity Data Global Commons: Biodiversity Informatics & the Global Biodiversity Information Facility European Environment Information and Observation Network National Reference Centres Biodiversity Workshop European Environmental Agency, September 2009, Copenhagen OUTLINE Role of Biodiversity Informatics, Role of GBIF Data Repatriation Disbursed Network of Functional BIFs Applications of Integrated, Primary, Species-level, Biodiversity Data Progress To Date in Moving Towards Full Operation Way Forward Biodiversity Crisis Biodiversity loss (species extinctions, loss of populations and genetic diversity) and change (e.g., population evolutionary characteristics, population sizes, species distributions, species composition, ecosystem area and health). Habitat Loss Invasive Species Overexploitation PollutionClimate Change Whats at Stake l Ecosystem Services: Biodiversity underpins ecosystems abilities to provide provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. l Growing Economic Case: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) estimated that not meeting the CBD 2010 target would result in 7% losses in GDP by E.g., Animal pollinator services contribute 153B annually (10% of global ag production). Intrinsic value & human wellbeing Role of Biodiversity Informatics l Foundation for biodiversity science: Because human threats to biodiversity extend across broad spatial and temporal scales, monitoring, forecasting, and risk assessments require data to be integrated. l Economies of scale: Pooling datasets allows repeated use. l Resolve the digital divide & repatriates data to countries of origin: Open access to research-grade data and rich metadata provides more equitable access. (i) Make global biodiversity information available in digital formats, and (ii) Develop tools for their analysis and understanding. Data Repatriation from and to Europe Europe shares 3.4M data records located in 193 other countries and territories; 1.6M records located in Europe are from 15 countries/orgs outside of Europe. International organization enabling free Internet access to global biodiversity data. What is GBIF? Establishment endorsed by OECD science ministers in Established via non-binding MoU, global network of Participants (member Countries & organizations). -Infrastructure to publish biodiversity datasets online; - Tools, standards & protocols for data publishing and access to interoperable datasets; - Metadata catalogue to enable dataset discovery; - Training, network of experts, & mentoring. Rights and responsibilities remain with data owner/custodian data repository X GBIF Membership 51 countries (shown) and 43 international organizations Governed through a Board of 32 Voting Participants 5% annual growth in country membership since initial 17 OECD countries joined at inception in 2001; 7 of 18 megadiverse countries not members; Oceania, Asia and Africa are underrepresented few developing country members (24) and of these, few are Voting members (9). Disbursed network of national, regional & thematic BIFs Example of Spain BIF Legal Framework/Funding: GBIF Spain was created via Ministerial Resolution establishing the Spanish Research Council as Spains BIF coordinating unit, and allocating a permanent budget (990k/yr); Node Data Portal: Spain data portal enables data publishing and free access to ~2M records from 40 institutions. Training & Mentoring: Digitization, data quality, standards, analytical tools nationally and actively building capacity of other countries within the GBIF network. Count / one degree cell General Categories of Applications of Primary Species-level Biodiversity Data l Species distributions: Currently the main use of GBIF-enabled data ecological niche modeling; l Species richness: GBIF web-based filtering tools by country and within protected areas, but limited due to taxonomic, spatial and other gaps; l Species abundance/population size: Not currently possible via GBIF-enabled data because metadata standards do not routinely capture information on sampling effort. However, methods exist to estimate sampling effort e.g., species accumulation time series curves can be used to estimate natural history collection effort. IAS 100 Worst Invaders There are sufficient sample sizes from the GBIF portal to support robust species distribution modeling for 83 of 100 of the species on the global 100 Worst Invaders list (Global Invasive Species Database). Asian longhorn beetle Applications of Primary Species-level Biodiversity Data Modeled native range of Asian tiger mosquito in Asia from GBIF-enabled records. Fastest spreading alien invasive mosquito. Transmitter of: Dengue, La Crosse, St. Louis, Eastern Equine, Ross River, Rift Valley, & West Nile Viruses Applications of Primary Species-level Biodiversity Data Mapping Disease Vectors Peterson et al., 2005 Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Asian tiger mosquito predicted global range expansion using Ecological Niche Modeling Applications of Primary Species-level Biodiversity Data Search Filters through the GBIF Data Portal TaxonomyGeospatialDatasetsOther details Scientific name Common name Classification Type status Country Region (of 23) Bounding box Latitude Longitude Elevation Depth Coordinate status (with/without coordinates) Coordinate issues (none/issues detected) Protected area Data publisher Dataset name Host country Occurrence date Year range Year Month Institution code Collection code Catalogue number Basis of record Image URL (present/absent) Web-based filters allow searches, classification, aggregation, and disaggregation of the 100GB of GBIF-enabled occurrence data records. Tools to Support Applications of Primary Species-level Biodiversity Data GBIF-Enabled Data & Monitoring 2010 Target Indicators Employing integrated datasets of primary species-level occurrence data to monitor CBD species-based indicators: Trends in abundance and distribution of selected species: WWF Living Planet Indices, Global Wild Bird Index; Change in status of threatened species: IUCN Red List Index, and Sampled Red List Index; Trends in IAS: Indices for the number of invasive alien species per country, impact of IAS on extinction risks, and policy development. Collen and Rist (2008) investigated the usability of GBIF-enabled data to monitor European SEBI 2010 Biodiversity Indicators finding problematic spatial and taxonomic gaps. Of SEBI2010 biodiversity indicators, GBIF supports monitoring species distributions. Applications of Primary Species-level Biodiversity Data Spatial Distribution of GBIF-enabled Georeferenced Data Distribution of >145M georeferenced records. Records fall predominantly within North America and Europe. Over two-thirds fall within only three countries: 42, 15, and 13% in the USA, Sweden, and UK, respectively Moving Towards Full Operation Inventory of GBIF portal by (a) kingdom; (b) animal kingdom for selected phyla and classes. Coverage is biased towards well-studied groups, especially birds, mammals and fishes. Invertebrates are generally underrepresented (insects comprise >60% of described species but only 9.5% of GBIF records). (a) (b) Moving Towards Full Operation Capturing Resolution in Metadata Estimate of error in horizontal positional accuracy has not been routinely captured in metadata published via GBIF. Animalia records within Spain and southern France, show gridded mapped resolution GBIF cannot publish raster data, so center is reported as point occurrence without capturing this transformation in metadata, the data might be misused Way Forward for Biodiversity Informatics Fill data portal taxonomic gaps (invertebrates insects); Fill data portal spatial gaps (Africa, Asia, Oceania); Complete comprehensive inventory to ID species richness by tax group & region, & temporal coverage (in-progress); Modify data and metadata publication standards to capture resolution and sampling effort; Develop tools to enable publication via GBIF of raster and polygon-based data types (in progress); Augment dataset publication change policies and enforcement; funding for digitizing and publishing the ~3 billion specimen records in natural history collections; increase data publication through growth in GBIF membership.