scholarly journals People: From a Collection Manager's Viewpoint

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elspeth Haston ◽  
Lorna Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Plant Names ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Biodiversity ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Do So ◽  
Residual Number

The specimens held in natural history collections around the world are the direct result of the effort of thousands of people over hundreds of years. However, the way that the names of these people have been recorded within the collections has never been fully standardised, and this makes the process of correctly assigning the event relating to the specimen to an individual difficult at best, and impossible at worst. The events in which people are related to specimens include collecting, identifying, naming, loaning and owning. Whilst there are resources in the botanical community that hold information on many collectors and authors of plant names, the residual number of unknown people and the effort required to disambiguate them is daunting. Moreover, in many cases, the work carried out within the collection to disambiguate the names relating to the specimens is often not recorded and made available, generally due to the lack of a system to do so. This situation is making it extremely difficult to search for collections within the main aggregators, such as GBIF —the Global Biodiversity Information Facility— , and severely hampers our ability to link collections both within and between institutes and disciplines. When we look at benefits of linking collections and people, the need to agree and implement a system of managing people names becomes increasingly urgent.

scholarly journals Unlocking the Entomological Collection of the Natural History Museum of Maputo, Mozambique

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domingos Sandramo ◽  
Enrico Nicosia ◽  
Silvio Cianciullo ◽  
Bernardo Muatinte ◽  
Almeida Guissamulo
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Development Programme ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Data Portal ◽  
Global Biodiversity ◽  
Biodiversity Information

The collections of the Natural History Museum of Maputo have a crucial role in the safeguarding of Mozambique's biodiversity, representing an important repository of data and materials regarding the natural heritage of the country. In this paper, a dataset is described, based on the Museum’s Entomological Collection recording 409 species belonging to seven orders and 48 families. Each specimen’s available data, such as geographical coordinates and taxonomic information, have been digitised to build the dataset. The specimens included in the dataset were obtained between 1914–2018 by collectors and researchers from the Natural History Museum of Maputo (once known as “Museu Alváro de Castro”) in all the country’s provinces, with the exception of Cabo Delgado Province. This paper adds data to the Biodiversity Network of Mozambique and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, within the objectives of the SECOSUD II Project and the Biodiversity Information for Development Programme. The aforementioned insect dataset is available on the GBIF Engine data portal (https://doi.org/10.15468/j8ikhb). Data were also shared on the Mozambican national portal of biodiversity data BioNoMo (https://bionomo.openscidata.org), developed by SECOSUD II Project.

scholarly journals Using the Taxonomic Backbone(s): The challenge of selecting a taxonomic resource and integrating it with a collection management solution

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Mayfield-Meyer ◽  
Phyllis Sharp ◽  
Dusty McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Marine Invertebrate ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Collection Management ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
The World ◽  
Name Matching ◽  
Research Grade ◽  
Global Biodiversity ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Insight Into

The reality is that there is no single “taxonomic backbone”, there are many: the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Backbone Taxonomy, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) and MolluscaBase, to name a few. We could view each one of these as a vertebra on the taxonomic backbone, but even that isn’t quite correct as some of these are nested within others (MolluscaBase contributes to WoRMS, which contributes to Catalogue of Life, which contributes to the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy). How is a collection manager without expertise in a given set of taxa and a limited amount of time devoted to finding the “most current” taxonomy supposed to maintain research grade identifications when there are so many seemingly authoritative taxonomic resources? And once a resource is chosen, how can they seamlessly use the information in that resource? This presentation will document how the Arctos community’s use of the taxon name matching service Global Names Architecture (GNA) led one volunteer team leader in a marine invertebrate collection to attempt to make use of WoRMS taxonomy and how her persistence brought better identifications and classifications to a community of collections. It will also provide insight into some of the technical and curatorial challenges involved in using an outside resource as well as the ongoing struggle to keep up with changes as they occur in the curated resource.

scholarly journals Harvestmen occurrence database (Arachnida, Opiliones) of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valéria da Silva ◽  
Manoel Aguiar-Neto ◽  
Dan Teixeira ◽  
Cleverson Santos ◽  
Marcos de Sousa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Consultation ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Northern Brazil ◽  
Global Biodiversity ◽  
The Government ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Brazilian Biodiversity

We present a dataset with information from the Opiliones collection of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Northern Brazil. This collection currently has 6,400 specimens distributed in 13 families, 30 genera and 32 species and holotypes of four species: Imeri ajuba Coronato-Ribeiro, Pinto-da-Rocha & Rheims, 2013, Phareicranaus patauateua Pinto-da-Rocha & Bonaldo, 2011, Protimesius trocaraincola Pinto-da-Rocha, 1997 and Sickesia tremembe Pinto-da-Rocha & Carvalho, 2009. The material of the collection is exclusive from Brazil, mostly from the Amazon Region. The dataset is now available for public consultation on the Sistema de Informação sobre a Biodiversidade Brasileira (SiBBr) (https://ipt.sibbr.gov.br/goeldi/resource?r=museuparaenseemiliogoeldi-collection-aracnologiaopiliones). SiBBr is the Brazilian Biodiversity Information System, an initiative of the government and the Brazilian node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), which aims to consolidate and make primary biodiversity data available on a platform (Dias et al. 2017). Harvestmen or Opiliones constitute the third largest arachnid order, with approximately 6,500 described species. Brazil is the holder of the greatest diversity in the world, with more than 1,000 described species, 95% (960 species) of which are endemic to the country. Of these, 32 species were identified and deposited in the collection of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi.

scholarly journals Exploring the impact of political regimes on biodiversity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Zizka ◽  
Oskar Rydén ◽  
Daniel Edler ◽  
Johannes Klein ◽  
Heléne Aronsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural History ◽  
The World ◽  
Regime Types ◽  
Global Biodiversity ◽  
Socio Economic Variables ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Underlying Processes ◽  
Do So

AbstractNational governments are the main actors responsible for mapping and protecting their biodiversity, but countries differ in their capacity, willingness, and effectiveness to do so. We quantify the global biodiversity managed by different regime types and developed a tool to explore the links between level of democracy and other key socio-economic variables with the number of natural history specimens registered within country boundaries. Using this tool, distinct and previously unknown patterns emerge around the world, that urge for increased collaboration between the natural and social sciences to further explore these patterns and their underlying processes.

scholarly journals Advancing the Catalogue of the World’s Natural History Collections

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Hobern ◽  
Deborah L Paul ◽  
Tim Robertson ◽  
Quentin Groom ◽  
Barbara Thiers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Multiple Networks ◽  
Biodiversity Knowledge ◽  
Online Consultation ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Complex Landscape ◽  
Biodiversity Information ◽  
Coordination Team ◽  
Research Resources

Information about natural history collections helps to map the complex landscape of research resources and assists researchers in locating and contacting the holders of specimens. Collection records contribute to the development of a fully interlinked biodiversity knowledge graph (Page 2016), showcasing the existence and importance of museums and herbaria and supplying context to available data on specimens. These records also potentially open new avenues for fresh use of these collections and for accelerating their full availability online. A number of international (e.g., Index Herbariorum, GRSciColl) regional (e.g. DiSSCo and CETAF) national (e.g., ALA and the Living Atlases, iDigBio US Collections Catalog) and institutional networks (e.g., The Field Museum) separately document subsets of the world's collections, and the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Collection Descriptions Interest Group is actively developing standards to support information sharing on collections. However, these efforts do not yet combine to deliver a comprehensive and connected view of all collections globally. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) received funding as part of the European Commission-funded SYNTHESYS+ 7 project to explore development of a roadmap towards delivering such a view, in part as a contribution towards the establishment of DiSSCo services within a global ecosystem of collection catalogues. Between 17 and 29 April 2020, a coordination team comprising international representatives from multiple networks ran Advancing the Catalogue of the World’s Natural History Collections, a fully online consultation using the GBIF Discourse forum platform to guide discussion around 26 consultation topics identified in an initial Ideas Paper (Hobern et al. 2020). Discussions included support for contributions in Spanish, Chinese and French and were summarised daily throughout the consultation. The consultation confirmed broad agreement around the needs and goals for a comprehensive catalogue of the world’s natural history collections, along with possible strategies to overcome the challenges. This presentation will summarise the results and recommendations.

scholarly journals DiSSCo e-Services to Serve Global Community Needs

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wouter Addink ◽  
Sharif Islam ◽  
Jose Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Data Standards ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Training Support ◽  
User Stories ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Community Curation ◽  
Biodiversity Information

DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections) is a research infrastructure (RI) under development, which will provide services for the global research community to support and enhance physical and digital access to the natural history collections in Europe. These services include training, support, documentation and e-services. This talk will focus on the e-services and will give an overview of the current status, roadmap and first results as an introduction to the next talks in the session, which focus on some of the services in more detail and the standards work undertaken in Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) to enable them. The RI community will provide the envisioned e-services, which will use the novel FAIR Digital Object (FDO) infrastructure serving digital specimens from the European collections. The infrastructure will provide integrated data analysis, enhanced interpretation, annotation and access services for community curation and visualisation. The FDO infrastructure enables specimen data to be (re-)connected with genomic, geographical, morphological, taxonomic and environmental information through the digital specimen, making them Digital Extended Specimens. A large number of user stories have been collected through the DiSSCo-linked projects ICEDIG, SYNTHESYS+ and DiSSCo Prepare, to guide which e-Services to build and what functionality to provide. These user stories are publicly available in a github repository. The e-services are developed based on the user stories and prioritization provided by collection providers and the scientific community. A variety of mechanisms are used to collect input: surveys, workshops, roundtables and workpackage meetings, and feedback from users that have already been using beta versions of some of the services. DiSSCo aims to become operational in 2026 but several of the services are already being piloted or implemented. Experimental services and demonstrators are publicly available through DiSSCo Labs for testing and feedback. By connecting the specimen data with derived and related information in a FAIR way (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable), the e-services will accelerate biodiversity discovery and support novel research questions. The FDO infrastructure has a data model that also integrates the PROV Ontology (PROV-O), which allows for the e-services to capture activities and improve the visibility of researcher contributions. This vision towards FAIR and high quality data is essential for community curation of the specimen data and making better use of the limited number of experts available. To provide the DiSSCo e-services in a FAIR way, the data derived from the natural history collections in Europe needs to be integrated as one virtual collection. The data has to be findable and accessible as soon as it is being created for services like a Specimen Data Refinery prior to publication in a facility like GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility). This requires new standards for describing collections and specimen data. Standards being created to fill these gaps are TDWG CD (Collection Descriptions) and TDWG MIDS (Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen). The DiSSCo e-Services vision brings the data, standards, and processes together to serve the user community.

scholarly journals Furthering Genomic Research Infrastructures: The Global Genome Biodiversity Network

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Barker ◽  
Jonas Astrin ◽  
Gabriele Droege ◽  
Jonathan Coddington ◽  
Ole Seberg
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Genomic Research ◽  
Benefit Sharing ◽  
Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽  
Access And Benefit Sharing ◽  
Culture Collections ◽  
Data Standard ◽  
Research Infrastructures ◽  
Biodiversity Information

Most successful research programs depend on easily accessible and standardized research infrastructures. Until recently, access to tissue or DNA samples with standardized metadata and of a sufficiently high quality, has been a major bottleneck for genomic research. The Global Geonome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) fills this critical gap by offering standardized, legal access to samples. Presently, GGBN’s core activity is enabling access to searchable DNA and tissue collections across natural history museums and botanic gardens. Activities are gradually being expanded to encompass all kinds of biodiversity biobanks such as culture collections, zoological gardens, aquaria, arboreta, and environmental biobanks. Broadly speaking, these collections all provide long-term storage and standardized public access to samples useful for molecular research. GGBN facilitates sample search and discovery for its distributed member collections through a single entry point. It stores standardized information on mostly geo-referenced, vouchered samples, their physical location, availability, quality, and the necessary legal information on over 50,000 species of Earth’s biodiversity, from unicellular to multicellular organisms. The GGBN Data Portal and the GGBN Data Standard are complementary to existing infrastructures such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and International Nucleotide Sequence Database (INSDC). Today, many well-known open-source collection management databases such as Arctos, Specify, and Symbiota, are implementing the GGBN data standard. GGBN continues to increase its collections strategically, based on the needs of the research community, adding over 1.3 million online records in 2018 alone, and today two million sample data are available through GGBN. Together with Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF), Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC), Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), and Synthesis of Systematic Resources (SYNTHESYS+), GGBN provides best practices for biorepositories on meeting the requirements of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). By collaboration with the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), GGBN is exploring options for tagging publications that reference GGBN collections and associated specimens, made searchable through GGBN’s document library. Through its collaborative efforts, standards, and best practices GGBN aims at facilitating trust and transparency in the use of genetic resources.

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