GBIF Newsletter (Jul. 2013)
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GBits no. 35 Jul 2013 INFORMATICS ��������������2 GBIF enables new national portals free and open access to biodiversity data NEW TOOLS ����������������2 Smartphone apps for plant identification from images … GBIF mentoring schemes … and for keys to identify insects and invasive announced weeds New Wiki site on thrips Three mentoring projects involving eight GBIF Participant countries will share expertise and experience across the SCIENCE AND POLICY ������3 network, helping to build capacity for publishing and use of GBits Science Supplement information on biodiversity. AROUND THE NETWORK ����3 The following projects have been approved and funded Call to mobilize biodiversity data from sub- under the 2013 GBIF Mentoring Programme. Saharan Africa Grants awarded to digitize US biodiversity • The Information System for Colombian Biodiversity collections (SiB Colombia) will help its counterpart SiB Brazil to accelerate the setting up a new Brazilian biodiversity New genomics centre in Canada to house DNA information infrastructure, following the country’s barcoding project entry into GBIF last October. NEW DATA ������������������3 • GBIF Belgium will mentor Participant nodes in Togo and Mauritania to improve their capacity to publish Belgium data. The project will also focus on the deployment of Netherlands biodiversity information websites in Mauritania and France Togo. The Nodes Portal Toolkit Startup, a GBIF product, will be assessed as a candidate for this. Germany • In the final mentoring project, GBIF nodes in Spain, Ireland France and Portugal will exchange their expertise in Sweden different areas, for mutual benefit. GBIF France will use its experience with a website using crowdsourcing to United Kingdom digitize botanical specimen labels, to support a similar Canada pilot project in Spain and Portugal. France will also support Spain and Portugal in developing a tool for Colombia visualizing data from their collections, based on tools ZooKeys journal developed for the new French data portal. As part TRAINING AND of the same project, GBIF Spain will help to set up an e-learning platform for GBIF France and an e-learning COLLABORATION �����������5 training package for GBIF Portugal. E-learning course on generating data papers Online forum for biodiversity information in Latin Each of the three projects will receive between €8,000 and America and Spain €15,000 from GBIF’s core funds, which are provided by governments of GBIF Voting Participant countries. Georeferencing training in South Africa GBIF IN THE NEWS����������6 Read the full story… UPCOMING EVENTS���������6 Meetings and workshops Training events To subscribe to the newsletter, please contact info@gbif.org GBits easier. Validated data are published to GBIF through INFORMATICS the Agoralogie society which promotes scientific collaborations using the semantic web. The GBIF enables new national portals iHerbarium app is available in French and English, and the website also in Spanish and Portuguese. An Three GBIF Participant countries have released new Android application is promised shortly. or revised web portals giving citizens and scientists better access to information about their country’s … and for keys to identify insects and biodiversity. invasive weeds Japan, Portugal and Colombia have all launched or Users of Android mobile devices now have new enhanced their national biodiversity information tools to help identify insects and invasive plants in websites using tools, codes and information sources Australia. A team at The University of Queensland has developed by the GBIF community. developed a mobile version of the Lucid software, allowing identification tools or keys to be deployed Since the last issue of GBits: as smartphone apps, initially for Android devices but with iPhone/iPad versions to follow shortly. • The GBIF node for Portugal, based at the Tropical Research Institute (IITC) in Lisbon, has released Two Lucid keys have already been made available on a bilingual portal. In its early stages, the site the Google Store – a free key to Insect Orders, and a provides information for the Portuguese-speaking key to Environmental Weeds of Australia. community on publishing and using biodiversity data through the GBIF network. In the future, the The insect key is designed to help advanced portal will display occurrence records in Portugal secondary school students, undergraduates and and data from Portuguese publishers, and help others interested in entomology to identify the most improve discovery and use of biodiversity data common adult insects to Order level in Australia. The in the country. Open-source functionalities and second key includes over 10,000 images helping users tools developed within the GBIF network will be identify 1,020 plant species that are either significant adapted and used for the portal. Read the full or emerging weeds in Australia. It should be useful story in English and in Portuguese. for researchers and anyone involved in weed control. • GBIF Japan’s portal has been redesigned and While focused on Australia, the key is also an now includes new features such as an online excellent resource for users in other countries. request form for institutions interested in making data available through GBIF. It also offers a test New Wiki site on thrips to ensure that the data are compatible with the Darwin Core standard, the principal means of An international group of taxonomists has launched organizing biodiversity data accessible through a new website giving information on nearly 6,000 GBIF. insect species belonging to more than 800 genera • GBIF Colombia released a new version of its of the Order Thysanoptera, also known as thrips, portal following another round of improvements thunderbugs or corn lice. ThripsWiki is supported by in its usability. The changes include an enhanced Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and look and feel for the site, sortable tables and the Forestry (DAFF), and builds on a checklist compiled use of a GitHub repository, a software framework in 2005 by Australia’s science agency CSIRO, with simplifying collaborative development. Read the funding support from GBIF, to check data from major full list of enhancements... thrip collections in Frankfurt, London and Washington DC. NEW TOOLS AND RESOURCES Lichanothrips pastinus, type specimen from the Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra Smartphone apps for plant identification from images … A France-based website has launched an iPhone application enabling amateur botanists to upload plant photos for identification by experts, and publication as occurrence records through the GBIF network. The images are sent to iHerbarium, whose volunteer experts help identify the plant and send an email with the information back to the user. The images and related information go into a central database, making future identifications 2 2 Aug 2011 no 35 Jul 2013 The new centre is a $16m expansion of the original SCIENCE AND POLICY Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, tripling the size of the former facility, and will house the secretariat GBits Science Supplement of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL), a GBIF Associate Participant. DNA barcoding allows scientists As usual, GBits is accompanied by a Science to identify animal and plant species using short, Supplement featuring recent uses of GBIF-mediated standardized regions of genetic material. data. The latest issue highlights research suggesting that invasive species shift their ecological ‘niche’ in Read full story… their new environments; and a special issue of the journal Biodiversity Informatics focussing on demand- driven biodiversity data publication. NEW DATA Download GBits Science Supplement... Belgium The Flemish government’s Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) has published a number of AROUND THE NETWORK datasets related to human impacts on the region’s rivers and efforts to restore riverine habitats. The new Call to mobilize biodiversity data from data now available through GBIF include: sub-Saharan Africa • Over 1,100 records of glass eels from the river The Central African Biodiversity Information Network Yser, captured during their migration for a study (CABIN) is calling for proposals for the mobilization on the species’ distribution; and online publication of biodiversity data from sub- • Juvenile and adult fish occurrences from sampling Saharan Africa. The aim is to preserve data belonging of contrasting habitats along the river Yser to to institutions in the region, to improve technical evaluate a restoration programme in an area capacity and to make the data visible through degraded by human activities such as raising of networks such as GBIF. The data will be physically held banks and heavy shipping traffic; on a server located at the Royal Museum for Central • Data from similar sampling of fish in the river Leie, Africa in Belgium, with selected African scientists to evaluate the impact of artificial banks; retaining full remote access and control as owners • 5,800 occurrence records of ground beetles and administrators of the datasets. (Carabidae) from the banks of the river Meuse. The dataset contains information on 109 species The deadline for applications is 31 August 2013. and comes from a monitoring study of the More details... Grensmaas region, the stretch of the Meuse bordering Belgium and Holland. The records are Grants awarded to digitize US among the data used in studies to measure the biodiversity collections riverine habitat’s health. Eight projects