GBIF Newsletter | Autumn 2021

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Cross-infrastructure update improves improves processing and quality of DNA-derived occurrences

A newly automated workflow relying on web services from the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) has created stable pipeline for publishing better organized, more up-to-date data coming from the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). Read more >

New guide published on sharing DNA-derived occurrence data

The GBIF Secretariat has released a new guide, Publishing DNA-derived data through biodiversity data platforms, prepared by an expert team of co-authors and aimed at providing holders of genomic and metagenomic data with practical advice on how to extend its utility. Read more >

Capacity enhancement round-up

CESP funds five new projects

Direct support of GBIF nodes in 2021 through the GBIF-funded Capacity Enhancement Support Programme involves 14 participant countries and organizations cover activities from mentoring to workshops and documentation. Read more >

BID: Biodiversity Information for Development

icymi (you've missed a lot!), the EU-funded BID programme has received additional support from the JRS Biodiversity Foundation for a full slate of grantmaking and capacity-support activities in recent months:

BIFA: Biodiversity Information Fund for Asia

Eleven new projects involving institutions from ten countries and areas in the region will receive support for their data mobilization and capacity development activities, thanks to funding from the Ministry of Environment, Government of Japan. Read more >

Namibia joins GBIF as associate participant

Engagement through the BID programme achieved another milestone when Teofilus Nghitila of the Ministry of Environment, Forestry & Tourism signed the GBIF MOU and signaled the Southern African country's support of open biodiversity data while becoming the continent's 21st—and the network's 101st—formal member. Read more >

Occurrence data forecast: increasing clouds

Users of large-scale cloud-computing services can now access monthly data snapshots from the GBIF network. For now, these snapshots include only CC0- or CC BY-designated species occurrence records with coordinates that have passed automated quality checks (a topic meriting further discussion).

Practiced hands and novices at combining petabytes of global-scale data currently have two options for using GBIF-mediated data in the cloud:

Microsoft Azure, via Microsoft AI for Earth's Planetary Computer (see the documentation, sample notebook and blog post)
Amazon Web Services via the Registry of Open Data on AWS (see the tutorial on the GBIF Data Blog)

In a further sign of things to come, GBIF has also registered as a service provider within the European Open Science Cloud, enabling EU-based participant nodes to track their work in support of EOSC's planned platform.

Australian blackwood, Acacia melanoxylon

Global partnership with ALA paves the way for an open-source system upgrade

More than 12 months of collaboration between developers from the Atlas of Living Australia and the GBIF Secretariat has produced a major upgrade to the ALA’s systems that makes them more reliable, more robust and better equipped to manage increasing volumes of biodiversity data. The partnership also establishes a shared codebase and a model for network's co-development of software. Read more >

The Ambassadors

Earlier this year GBIF's cadre of Biodiversity Open Data Ambassadors participated in an informal webinar session to share experiences after a year of representing by Zoom. We're upgrading the tools and resources made available to them—and you have access to them, too.

News and notes

Dr Francisca Astorga, a Chilean verterinary researcher with experience in wildlife health, conservation and disease ecology, has received a commission to conduct a systematic review of literature using GBIF-mediated data relating to human health
Secretariat staff released version 2.5 of the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) on 31 August and a mid-September update to the GBIF backbone taxonomy
Two GBIF organizational participants, the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) and Plazi, announced their collaboration on improving digital access to biodiversity literature
A hackathon held at Botanic Gardens Meise and organized through the EU-funded BiCIKL project (in which GBIF is a participant) saw Secretariat and network data specialists improve GBIF's clustering algorithm and increase the number of linked records from 43.7 million to 50.5 million
GBIF participant Catalogue of Life issued its first annual release to assign Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to all its source checklists

Upcoming events and deadlines

4-7 Oct: Inauguration of the Swedish Biodiversity Data Infrastructure (SBDI launch week)
5-8 Oct: GB28: 28th Meeting of the GBIF Governing Board (virtual)
11-15 Oct: First part of the 2021-22 UN Biodiversity Conference (virtual kick-off to COP 15)
12-13 Oct: High-Level Segment to the 2021-22 UN Biodiversity Conference, Kunming, China
18-22 Oct: TDWG 2021 Annual Conference (virtual)
19-20 Oct: Second Edition of Finance in Common Summit, Rome
25-26 Oct: Living Norway Colloquium 2021
31 Oct-12 Nov: UN Climate Change Conference, Glasgow, UK
12-16 Dec: International Congress for Conservation Biology: ICCB 2021 (virtual)
25 Apr-8 May 2022: Second part of the 2021-22 UN Biodiversity Conference + COP 15, Kunming, China

Is the calendar missing an event? Post your suggestions!

Happy birthday, GBIF!

Having just returned to the office two days a week in August, staff from the Secretariat and the Natural History Museum of Denmark (our host institution) gathered for some special kage to mark the 20th anniversary of representatives of GBIF's founding Participants signing on to establish the network we've now become—look at how we've grown!

Get it while you can: Science Review 2020 in print

While we work to wrap up our 2021 edition of the Science Review (and while supplies last), the GBIF Secretariat will ship printed copies of the Science Review 2020 upon request of those interested in receiving them.

Place your (gratis) order >

Photo credits

(top to bottom): Oscillatoria redekei 2021 Vicente Franch Meneu (CC BY-NC 4.0); Velvet shank (Flammulina velutipes) 2020 Oleg Ryzhkov (CC BY-NC 4.0); False plain tiger (Hypolimnas misippus) 2021 Justine Helen Brown (CC BY-NC 4.0); Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus subsp. jubatus) 2017 Dr Dave Wellow (CC BY-NC 4.0); Brazilian free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) 2021 Caitlin Campbell (CC BY-NC 4.0); Australian blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) 2021 David Sando (CC BY-NC 4.0); Saulcy's leafcutter (Megachile saulcyi) 2020 Orlando Montes (CC BY-NC 4.0).

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