Dora Canhos

Much progress has been made in the past ten years to fulfil the potential of biodiversity informatics. However, it is dwarfed by the scale of what is still required. The Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook (GBIO) offers a framework for reaching a much deeper understanding of the world’s biodiversity, and through that understanding the means to conserve it better and to use it more sustainably. The GBIO identifies four major focal areas, each with a number of core components, to help coordinate efforts and funding. The co-authors, from a wide range of disciplines, agree these are the essential elements of a global strategy to harness biodiversity data for the common good.

A comprehensive new inventory of Brazilian plants and fungi was published just in time to meet a 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity target and offers important insights into this biodiversity's global significance. Brazil is the home to the world's richest flora (40,989 ...