Annual
Report2012
www.gbif.org

What is GBIF?
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility is a networkof governments and international organizations,collaborating with a Secretariat in Copenhagen,Denmark, to provide a vital infrastructure for researchand policy. It enables information about all forms oflife on Earth, gathered over centuries in all parts of the
globe, to be readily accessible by anyone, anywhere.
Through a global data portal, web services and a
growing number of national and thematic portals,
GBIF users have free access to more than 10,000
datasets published by over 450 institutions,
ranging from zoological and botanical collections toobservations by citizen scientists and surveys fromresearch expeditions.
GBIF’s vision
A world in which biodiversity information is freely
and universally available for science, society anda sustainable future.

01

GBIF Annual Report 201202

Foreword

highly-functional global infrastructure that is readyto scale up as volumes of available data increase.
During 2012, we have also made major progress inunderstanding and improving the quality of the data
we handle.

Joanne Daly
Chair of the Governing Board

Donald Hobern
Executive Secretary

We are excited to report on GBIF’s achievements for2012. GBIF has continued to increase its relevanceas a significant resource for biodiversity research
and for supporting the needs of decision-makers.
This is despite a difficult year financially that
disrupted some of our plans through reductions incore funding.
The growing value of GBIF is reflected in thecontinued increase in the number of peer-reviewed
studies that acknowledge the use of data mobilized
through our network. These studies are addressing
key questions around biodiversity and humanity’s
relationship to our environment in ways that only
become possible once significant quantities ofdata have been published and organized.
We are also encouraged by the growing numberof biodiversity-related projects and online
applications, supported by national and regional
agencies, which use GBIF as a foundation for data
flow and informatics solutions. Some examples are
given in this report.
GBIF has now evolved from a pioneering phase inwhich our global community explored and defined
the processes and models for making biodiversity
data available. Our wide-ranging network ofParticipants is now delivering an effective andA very significant development during 2012 was theformal establishment of the Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity andEcosystem Services (IPBES). We were happy to beable to contribute to discussions about the work
programme of the new platform, as we remain
convinced that the data mobilization and accessfacilitated by GBIF Participants will be an essential
support for the work of IPBES, and that the two
initiatives are entirely complementary and mutuallydependent.
The Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference inJuly 2012 provided a valuable opportunity for GBIF
to explore the status and future of biodiversity
informatics with a wide range of experts. The
conference re-emphasized the importance of
our work and indicated exciting opportunities
to increase our collaboration with other efforts
to mobilize biodiversity information and with
communities building digital models basedon primary data. The meeting report, a Global
Biodiversity Informatics Outlook, will be publishedand promoted during 2013.
This report covers the first half of a two-year
work programme. Some key activities will not becompleted until later in 2013. In particular, we lookforward to presenting a completely redesigned
GBIF portal, with much-improved tools and services
for users to explore and use data from the GBIF
network.
We thank all those who have contributed this past
year to helping GBIF achieve its goals.
Joanne and Donald

03

Contents

Foreword

2

GBIF in 2012 – a summary

4

Data content and publishing metrics

6

Data usage and access8

Informatics developments in 201210

Promoting data publishing and re-use

13Some key events in 201216

Supporting global biodiversity policy

18

Building a global biodiversity information community

20

GBIF in Africa

22

GBIF in Asia

25

GBIF in Europe

28

GBIF in Latin America

32

GBIF in North America

35

GBIF in Oceania

38

Communications

40

End notes

42

Appendices

43

FIRE SALAMANDER (SALAMANDRA SALAMANDRA) © ERIC ISSELEE

04

GBIF in 2012 – a summary

Researchers made increasing use of GBIF as a source of evidence about biodiversity.
More than 230 peer-reviewed papers cited use of data accessed through GBIF, a rateof nearly 20 publications each month.
Over 40 studies used GBIF-mediated data to research invasive alien species. Other significant
areas of GBIF-enabled research included impacts of climate change, priorities for conservation,
human health, food security and the distribution of species.
For details, see the 2012 GBIF Science Review, published for the first time alongside this Annual Report.

The volume of data published through the GBIF network rose by nearly 20 per cent during
2012, reaching 382 million species occurrence records by December.
The number of species with at least one reported occurrence in the GBIF data index passed
one million.
More than 500,000 visitors accessed the GBIF data portal, with over 22,000 recorded data
downloads.
GBIF demonstrated an early version of a toolkit to help countries and organizations start
up a website on biodiversity.
GBIF convened experts at the Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference, developing
a framework to improve the evidence base for future decisions affecting biodiversity.

PARTICIPATION IN THE GBIF NETWORK AT THE END OF 2012

VOTING PARTICIPANTSASSOCIATE COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
PRE-2012 PARTICIPANTS** Those whose signature of the 2012+ memorandum of understanding was still pending at year end.

05

THESE MAPS SHOW HOW THE BIODIVERSITY DATA PUBLISHED THROUGH GBIF ARE DISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE WORLD. IN MAP A (TOP) THE COLOURS INDICATEDENSITY OF OCCURRENCE RECORDS FOR EACH ONE-DEGREE CELL. THE HEAT MAPS FOR RECORD DENSITY (BELOW LEFT) AND SPECIES DENSITY (BELOW RIGHT) SHOWMORE CLEARLY THE HIGH CONCENTRATION OF DATA IN REGIONS SUCH AS NORTH AMERICA, EUROPE, AUSTRALIA, SOUTH AFRICA AND THE ANDEAN REGION, AND THE
UNDER-REPRESENTATION OF MANY BIODIVERSE REGIONS.

Some regional highlights
Africa: Ghana published its first data through GBIF, covering more than 10,000 West African
plant species.
Asia: GBIF Japan began a project under the GBIF mentoring scheme to support biodiversity
information management in Indonesia.
Europe: Finland and France demonstrated innovative techniques to digitize large numbersof natural history specimen records.
Latin America: Brazil became the latest national Participant in GBIF, heralding greater accessto data from its diverse ecosystems.
North America: The Canadensys data network launched a new platform enabling online
exploration of Canada’s biodiversity collections – using GBIF-developed tools.
Oceania: Australia ‘repatriated’ more than one million biodiversity data records held
overseas into its national portal.
For more highlights from each GBIF region, see our regional reports from p 22, another innovation for the 2012
Annual Report.

06

Data content and publishing metrics

Mobilization of biodiversity datasets around theglobal network of publishing institutions during
2012 continued to drive up the total number ofoccurrence records accessible through GBIF. By theend of the year, more than 382 million records wereindexed. This represented an increase of some 20%
in volume compared with 2011, even after a slight
fall due to the removal of significant numbers ofduplicate and redundant records in December.

NUMBER OF OCCURRENCE RECORDS (MILLIONS)
420
400
380
360
340
320
300
280
260
240
220
200
180
160
140
120

TOTAL INDEXED OCCURRENCE RECORDSGEOREFERENCED RECORDS (EXCLUDING THOSE WITH
DOUBTFUL COORDINATES)

J

F

M

A

M

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

2012
FIGURE 1. INCREASE IN DATA VOLUME DURING 2012.

TOTAL NUMBER OF SPECIESThe diversity included in the GBIF index continued
to grow, with more than one million species
represented in the occurrence records accessible
via the global data portal and web services.

1,039,879

NUMBER OF SPECIES WITH NO GEOREFERENCED OCCURRENCES

430,944

41%

NUMBER OF SPECIES WITH AT LEAST ONE GEOREFERENCED OCCURRENCE

608,935

59%

NUMBER OF SPECIES WITH AT LEAST 10 GEOREFERENCED OCCURRENCES

225,333

22%

NUMBER OF SPECIES WITH AT LEAST 100 GEOREFERENCED OCCURRENCES

57,421

6%

FIGURE 2. SPECIES REPRESENTED IN THE GBIF INDEX.

In terms of volume, analysis of the data content
continued to show bias towards data from certain
regions (especially North America and Europe)and certain types of record (especially animal
observations). The geographical bias was lesspronounced in the origin of specimen records(see figures 3 and 4).

N UM

BE R

CO
F RE

RDS

LION

(MIL

S)

O

200

150

100

50

OBSERVATIONSPECIMEN0
ANIMALIAOTHERDATA TYPES

PLANTAEOTHER KINGDOMSFIGURE 3. PRIMARY BIODIVERSITY RECORDS BY KINGDOM AND RECORD TYPE, AT END 2012.

07

DATA RECORDS BREAKDOWN
BY LOCATION OF PUBLISHING INSTITUTION

BY ORIGIN OF BIODIVERSITY
1%

1%
2%

2%
45%

6%

3%

4%

42%

10%

5%

1%
42%

6%

12%

5%

8%

1%

19%

5%

8%
36%

ALL RECORDS

SPECIMEN RECORDS
ONLY

8%

OBSERVATION
RECORDS ONLY

33%
26%

17%

44%

8%
EUROPENORTH AMERICA (INCL. MEXICO)OCEANIA

SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICAAFRICAHIGH SEAS

ASIA

INTERNATIONAL NETWORKSFIGURE 4. PUBLISHED RECORDS BY LOCATION OF PUBLISHING INSTITUTION AND SPECIES OCCURRENCES.

DATA BREAKDOWN BY GBIF PARTICIPANT
INDEXED OCCURRENCE RECORDS (MILLIONS)

160

18

140

16
14

120

INDEXED BY END 2012
INDEXED BY END 2011

12

100

10
80

8

60

JA
PA
CO
N
ST
A
RI
CA
AU
ST
RI
A
M
EX
IC
O
CA
NA
DA
IR
EL
AN
RE
D
P.O
FK
OR
EA
PO
LA
NE
ND
W
ZE
AL
AN
SW
D
IT
ZE
RL
AN
LU
XE
D
M
BO
UR
G
CO
LO
M
BI
A

BE

LG
I

N

UM

K
AR

SP
AI

DE

RI
AF

H
UT

NM

Y

CA

S

AN

GE

SO

NE

TH

RM

D

ND

CE
AN
FR

RW

LA

NO

ER

0
AN

0

NL

2

FI

20

AY

4

U
ST NITAT ED
ESKI U NNG I
DO TED
M
SW
ED
EN
AU
ST
RA
LI
A

6

40

FIGURE 5A. NUMBER OF RECORDS PUBLISHED BY GBIF PARTICIPANT COUNTRIES (TOP 25). NOTE THAT THE FOUR HIGHEST-PUBLISHING COUNTRIES TO THE LEFT ARE SHOWN ON A
DIFFERENT SCALE. A FALL IN NUMBERS FOR SOME COUNTRIES IS MAINLY DUE TO IDENTIFICATION AND REMOVAL OF DUPLICATE RECORDS. FOR A FULL LIST OF DATA RECORDS PUBLISHEDBY GBIF PARTICIPANTS, SEE APPENDIX 1.

Institutions in the United States, United Kingdom,
Sweden and Australia contributed most records to the
GBIF index. The biggest proportional increase during
2012 came from Norway, which more than doubled
the number of records to around 17 million – moving
it to fifth place globally. Four GBIF Participants fromthe developing world (South Africa, Costa Rica, Mexico
and Colombia) appeared in the list of the top 25 datapublishing countries (see figure 5A).

INDEXED OCCURRENCE RECORDS (MILLIONS)

15
13
INDEXED BY END 2012

11

INDEXED BY END 2011

9
7
5
3
1

SC

IE

NT

NA
TU

RE

SE

IF
ON IC CA N OM
RE TA MITS E RC E E
AR TIC
CH

RV
E

I
PE
TA
I
E
ES
IN
CH

TE BIO
RN VE
AT RS
IO IT
NA Y
L
IN

BI
OG
I N EO O
FO G CRM RA EAP N
SY ATI HIC
ST ON
EM

0

FIGURE 5B. NUMBER OF RECORDS PUBLISHED BY OTHER GBIF ASSOCIATE PARTICIPANTS (TOP FIVE).

A further 36 species checklists were made available
through GBIF during 2012, bringing the total number
to 100 (see a full list in Appendix 4). The incorporationof checklists in the index since 2011 has enabled richer
information to be harvested regarding aspects suchas common names in multiple languages, taxonomies,
species descriptions and conservation status.

08
04

Data usage and access

Scientists are making increasing use of GBIF’s
services, helping to demonstrate the value of theinfrastructure built up since 2001 to mobilize,
publish, discover and access digital biodiversity
data.
At least 230 peer-reviewed journal articles cited
GBIF as a source of data in 2012, based onmonitoring of scientific literature1 by the Secretariat(figure 6).

To do justice to the wide range of research enabledby the data access provided by GBIF, the 2012 GBIF
Science Review is published alongside this Annual
Report. The review summarizes some of the key
studies, and provides full citations for all papers
identified as using GBIF-mediated data during 2012.
Country affiliations for all authors are listed in the
Science Review, and are summarized in figure 7 on
this page.
In addition to published scientific research, anincreasing number of biodiversity-related projects
and online applications used data mobilized by
GBIF’s Participants. These applications generally
access data via the web services provided by GBIF
alongside its global portal. Box 1 shows someexamples launched in 2012.

NUMBER OF CITATIONS
250
GBIF USEDGBIF DISCUSSED
200

150

NUMBER OF ARTICLES WITH AT LEAST ONE AUTHOR FROM THE COUNTRY.
80
100

70
60
50

50

40
30

0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012
20

FIGURE 6. A SUMMARY OF GBIF CITATION IN PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS,
2008–2012.

10

Fields of research using GBIF-mediated data
included: forecasting alien species invasions;
reducing negative ecological impacts ofdevelopment projects; priorities for conservationof threatened species; and the likely impacts ofclimate change on agriculture, human diseases
and species distributions.

UNI
U N TE DITED STAK I TE SNGA U DO
ST M
R
GE ALIA
RM
AN
Y
SP
AI
CA N
NA
DA
CH
IN
FR A
AN
C
M E
EX
SW ICOED
BE E N
LG
IU
M
N
SW OR
IT W A
ZE
Y
RL
AN
BR D
CO AZI
LO L
M
BI
A
IN
DI
A
ITA
LY

0

Through such research, the datasets publishedthrough GBIF from around the world helped toprovide evidence for science informing decisions in
key areas relating to biodiversity, its conservationand sustainable use.

FIGURE 7. NUMBER OF PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS IN 2012 CITING USE OF
GBIF-­M EDIATED DATA, RANKED BY COUNTRY ACCORDING TO AFFILIATION OF
AUTHORS. TOP 17 COUNTRIES ONLY SHOWN.

GBIF’s systems of data discovery and access do not
yet allow very precise analysis or profiling of users
or their reasons for accessing and downloading
data. Citation of the use of GBIF-mediated data inresearch is often inadequate, and this compounds
the problem. The next phase of the GBIF portal(see p 10) will enable such analysis and reporting,pending community decisions about login
requirements.
Nevertheless, box 2 gives an overview of data
access and downloads during 2012, based on
Google Analytics.

09
05

BOX 1

Applications using GBIF data services

BOX 2

Visitors to GBIF data portal in 2012

The Map of Life2, a project developed in the UnitedStates to build up a global knowledge base about
the distribution of species, was released in beta
form in 2012. At the time of launch, it used 148
million records from GBIF, relating to more than
70,000 vertebrate species. 3775,680 TOTAL VISITS

527,765
UNIQUE VISITORSThe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species4, theglobal authority on the conservation status of
the world’s animals and plants, has a new map
interface that displays occurrence records from
GBIF alongside its expert range maps.

AVERAGE VISIT DURATION: 3.43 MINUTES

The iMarine initiative5, co-funded by the European
Commission in collaboration with the UN Foodand Agriculture Organisation (FAO), supports the
Ecosystem Approach to fisheries management
and the conservation of marine living resources.
It uses the D4Science e-Infrastructure6 to sharedata, software and computing capacity. GBIF is an
important source of biodiversity data exploitedby the iMarine user community through the
D4Science services.

The European Alien Species Information Network7,
aimed at improving access to data and informationon alien species in Europe, uses GBIF as oneof four initial data sources for its map services.
The network will support new European Union
regulation on invasive alien species.

The Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) project8,
the platform for DNA-based identification of
species, has introduced a ‘taxonomy browser’
which displays a map of GBIF-publishedoccurrences alongside the distribution of‘barcoded’ specimens for more than 170,000
species. This helps to detect outliers and possible
extensions to the range of known species.

INDIA
COLOMBIAUSA

BRAZIL
ARGENTINAFRANCEUNITED
KINGDOM

MEXICOGERMANYSPAIN

TOP TEN COUNTRIES BASED ON NUMBER OF VISITS, TOGETHERACCOUNTING FOR 53.4% OF ALL VISITS TO THE PORTAL. PLEASE NOTETHAT ALL OF THESE TEN COUNTRIES ARE GBIF PARTICIPANTS. THE LIST
CORRESPONDS CLOSELY TO LOCATION OF RESEARCHERS CITING USE
OF GBIF-MEDIATED DATA IN PUBLISHED ARTICLES (SEE FIGURE 7 ON
FACING PAGE).

22,630 TOTALDATA DOWNLOADSThe anymals + plants smartphone application9,
supported by the German Federal Ministry of
Education and Research, enables users to upload
geo-referenced wildlife observations via theirAndroid device. Data extracted from GBIF help toprovide a list of species users can expect to find ina particular locality.

1,500 – 2,500
PER MONTH

Source: Google Analytics

10
04

Informatics developments in 2012

HOW BIODIVERSITY DATA ARE PUBLISHED THROUGH GBIF%
60
PUBLISHERS (%) 2011
PUBLISHERS (%) 2012

50

40

30

20

10

ER
OT
H

IP

T+

DW
C-

A

TA
PI
R

R
GI
DI

BI

OC

AS

E

0

FIGURE 8. USAGE OF DATA PUBLISHING PROTOCOLS, BY PERCENTAGE OF PUBLISHERS.

%
70
OCCURRENCE RECORDS (%) 201160

OCCURRENCE RECORDS (%) 2012

50
40

IMPROVING THE SERVICE FOR GBIF USERS
A MAJOR FOCUS OF GBIF’S WORK IN 2012 WAS DEVELOPMENT OF AN IMPROVED,UNIFIED GLOBAL WEB PORTAL, BEING ROLLED OUT IN 2013. IT WILL SUPPORTUNLIMITED DATA DOWNLOADS, REAL-TIME INDEXING OF PUBLISHED DATA AND
MUCH RICHER INFORMATION ON SPECIES AND DATASETS. THE PORTAL WILLINCORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS ABOUT THE GBIF NETWORK INCLUDING NEWS,EVENTS AND FEATURES, AS WELL AS COUNTRY-LEVEL INFORMATION FOR ALL
GBIF PARTICIPANTS.

30
20
10

The GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT)
continued to gain ground as the tool of choice formaking biodiversity datasets easily available forre-use (see figures 8 and 9). During 2012, 28 new
IPT installations were registered – a 61% increaseon the number installed at the beginning of the year.
Following a major upgrade of the IPT in 2011,
development in 2012 concentrated on fixing bugs
and improving stability, and building a communityof users. Colombia provided an impressive exampleof how GBIF tools can be used to serve national
needs as well as contributing to global data access(See box 3 on facing page).

ER
OT
H

A
DW
C-

R
GI
DI

TA
PI
R

T+

GBIF’s data publishing,discovery and access tools

IP

BI

OC
A

SE

0

FIGURE 9. USE OF DATA PUBLISHING PROTOCOLS, BY PERCENTAGE OFOCCURRENCE RECORDS.

PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTIONSTaiBIF, the GBIF node for Chinese Taipei, translated the IPTinterface into traditional Chinese. GBIF Colombia provided
a Spanish translation both of the IPT interface and the IPTuser manual. GBIF Belgium revised the French interface ofthe software.
The Canadian biodiversity data publishing network,
Canadensys, developed a guide to publishing data throughthe IPT in seven easy steps.10 This guide has been adaptedby other GBIF Participants including a Spanish translation
produced by GBIF Colombia, and a customized version
developed by the Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility(AntaBIF).
The GBIF data portal interface was translated into Polish andJapanese, by voluntary efforts from GBIF Poland and GBIFJapan respectively.

11
05

Toolkit to start a biodiversity information
websiteThe GBIF Secretariat developed the first version ofa toolkit making it easy for Participants with limited
or no web presence to set up a national biodiversity
information website.
The Nodes Portal Toolkit (NPT) Startup helps
deploy a website that includes distribution maps
and checklists of species for a particular country,
extracted from GBIF-mediated primary biodiversity
data. It also includes images, videos and species
descriptions from the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL),
and lists scientific articles using GBIF-mediateddata.

PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTIONS
Nodes in Benin, Togo, Kenya, Madagascar and Slovakia
collaborated with the Secretariat to set up five NPT Startup
demonstration sites. In addition, the GBIF node for Costa
Rica, INBio, is working with GBIF Benin to develop additional
functionality for the NPT Startup.
EXTERNAL FUNDING AND SUPPORTThe INBio-Benin NPT collaboration is part of a project fundedby the JRS Foundation. The NPT Startup has been developed
in close collaboration with the Scratchpads team under theEuropean Union’s Virtual Biodiversity Research and AccessNetwork for Taxonomy (ViBRANT).

Participants can then customize the portal byadding more features.

BOX 3

SiB Colombia – using GBIF tools to publish data from a megadiverse country

During 2012, Colombia’s biodiversity information
facility (SiB Colombia) overhauled its distributed
national network to publish and accessbiodiversity data, using tools and standards
developed by GBIF. Nine separate installationsof the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT)enable institutions around the country to publish
their own data with clear branding to indicate theoriginal source.

SIB COLOMBIA’S DATA PORTALSiB Colombia launched a new, attractivelydesigned national data portal (http://data.
sibcolombia.net) that uses a copy of the open
source code for the GBIF Data Portal 11 . The
Colombian version is customized to allow data
to be searched and displayed for each of the
33 departments in the country. SiB Colombia
estimates that it saved six years of development
efforts by recycling the GBIF source code.

12

Informatics standards
New frontiers – accommodating the genomic
data revolution
GBIF worked with partners in 2012 to begin aligning
the data standards for observations of biodiversity
using gene sequences (genomic-level observation)with those describing the occurrence of named
species. This fulfils a commitment in the GBIF
Strategic Plan 2012-16 to advance the digital content
through accommodating new data domains.
The aim is to help link the type of data currently
published through GBIF with the wealth of new
genomic information made available by low-cost,high-throughput gene sequencing. This includes,for example, ‘metagenomic’ data from sampling theextremely diverse communities of microorganisms
being discovered in soils, oceans, plant surfaces
and other environments.
A GBIF-led workshop in Oxford, United Kingdom, inFebruary brought together experts from Europe, theUnited States, China and Japan in association with
the Genomic Standards Consortium, an initiative topromote standard descriptions of genomes and theenvironmental context in which they occur.
The workshop made progress in mapping thestandards used to capture species data with thosedeveloped for genomic data. The participants
developed a prototype and a pilot collaboration as
the first steps to enable genomic-level data to be
published through the GBIF network.12
PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTIONSThe Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility (AntaBIF), fundedby the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), is developinga system for sharing the data on microbial diversity gatheredby Antarctic researchers. As part of the Microbial Antarctic
Resource System (MARS), a workshop in May built on thework of GBIF and others on genomic data mapping to proposea standard for microbial samples from the Antarctic region.
The standard was endorsed by microbiologists at the ScientificCommittee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) open science
conference in July.

Managing vocabularies for biodiversity
informatics
The GBIF Secretariat, in collaboration with JuliusKühn Institut, Berlin, developed a prototype GBIF
Terminology Platform13, to support collaboration on
the development of vocabularies used to organize
digital information on biodiversity.
The overall purpose is to encourage the community
to agree a common language for describing
biodiversity resources, enabling integration of
biodiversity data and thus supporting research.
The easy-to-use platform is based on WikiMedia
software, also used by Wikipedia, and uses the
Semantic MediaWiki extension which allows data
items to be tagged and queried within the wiki
pages. This enables the community to collaborate
on developing and maintaining shared vocabularies.
Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) set up a
Vocabulary Management Task Group to encourage
best practice in developing and maintaining shared
vocabularies, such as through the GBIF Terminology
Platform. The task group’s discussions can befollowed via a group on the GBIF Community Site.14
EXTERNAL FUNDING AND SUPPORT
GBIF’s work on vocabulary management has been fundedby the Virtual Biodiversity Research and Access Network for
Taxonomy (ViBRANT) under the European Union’s Seventh
Framework Programme (FP7).15

13

Promoting data publishing and re-use

During 2012, GBIF continued to work on various
practical measures to encourage a culture ofdata publication and re-use, addressing relevant
communities with the overall aim of raising
incentives and lowering barriers.

Data papers
Four research teams published ‘data papers’ in
2012, using the workflow developed in 2011 by GBIF
and Pensoft Publishers to generate manuscripts fora peer-reviewed journal article from metadata (datadescribing datasets) entered through the Integrated
Publishing Toolkit (IPT) (see box 4).

BOX 4

The aim is to give due recognition to thoseauthoring high-quality descriptions of publiclyavailable biodiversity datasets, providing an
incentive to publish data and increasing thequality and visibility of the datasets themselves.
PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTIONSThe GBIF Secretariat is supporting efforts to accelerate
publication of data papers through catalytic funding of
three projects to be run by GBIF nodes in Spain, Colombia
and India during 2013. The project proposals, approvedin December 2012, envisage a combined total of at least
40 new data papers resulting from a series of workshops,
online teaching packages and a special section for data
papers in the journal Biota Colombiana16.

Data papers published in 2012

Antarctic Starfish
A team from the Antarctic
Biodiversity Information Facility(AntaBIF) and Université Librede Bruxelles published a paperin ZooKeys journal describing adataset of 27 species of deep-sea
starfish, collected from depths
up to nearly 5,000 metres during
a 2005 expedition to an underexplored region of the Southern
Ocean.17

Belgian flora
A paper in PhytoKeys journal
described a dataset of 3.4 million
records showing the distributionof nearly 3,000 wild plant species
in Flanders and the Brussels
Capital Region. The Florabank1
database is an initiative of the
Flo.Wer network, the ResearchInstitute for Nature and Forest(INBO) and the National Botanic
Garden of Belgium.18

Cold-water sea urchins
A research team from France
published a paper in ZooKeys
describing a dataset of morethan 6,000 records of sea urchins(Echinoids) covering over 250
species, collected during many
oceanographic expeditions to the
Antarctic, sub-Antarctic and cold
temperate waters of the Southern
Hemisphere between 1872 and2010.19

Taiwanese fish survey
Researchers from the Biodiversity
Research Center in Taipei
published a paper in ZooKeys
describing a dataset of morethan 3,500 records covering 631
fish species, gathered from thelargest-ever study of bottomdwelling fish in coastal waters
around Taiwan. The survey
collected data from trawlers
between 2000 and 2003, andaimed to evaluate the impact of aban on trawling close to shore.20

PSALIDASTER MORDAX RIGIDUS© SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, NATIONAL
MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORYANAGALLIS TENELLA© WOUTER VAN LANDUYTSEA URCHIN (HELIOCIDARIS SP)© RICHARD LING

PTERYGOTRIGLA HEMISTICTA© KWANG-TSAO SHAO14

ACALYPHA HISPIDA © FLORIAN KELLNER AND PHILIPP WEBER

Publishing data from researchComplementing the data papers whose primary
aim is to describe datasets, GBIF tools are enablinga growing number of researchers to publish
datasets arising from research articles, for example
taxonomic reviews and botanical surveys.
This practice makes the data accessible through
GBIF for future use and analysis (see box 5).

Moving towards peer-reviewed data?
Data publishers should have the option ofsubmitting their biodiversity datasets forpeer review, according to a discussion paper
commissioned by GBIF and published in 2012.
The proposal is among a set of recommendations
made by Mark Costello and co-authors in the paper
Quality assurance and Intellectual Property Rights
in advancing biodiversity data publication.21
The paper argues that concerns over data quality
impede the use of large biodiversity databases by
researchers, and subsequent benefits to society.
Peer review is proposed as the highest standardof a scale of quality assurance that could be
attached to datasets published through online
networks such as GBIF.

BOX 5

Research studies publishing data through GBIF

Pensoft Publishers, which operates several open-accessonline journals, has an installation of the Integrated
Publishing Toolkit (IPT) which enables its authors to publish
datasets associated with their research directly through GBIF.
Studies contributing data in this way during 2012 included:
		 A taxonomic review of the family of ‘velvet spiders’		 (Eresidae) proposing a new genus and a new species.
		 The authors published georeferenced records of more		 than 190 specimens from Africa, Europe and Asia,
		 covering 17 species, on which the analysis was based.22
		 A description of two new species of parasitic lice		 associated with the trogon family of birds in South		 America. Precise locations in Brazil and Peru of the		 specimens associated with the research are published		 through GBIF.23
		 A review of the Ectoedemia genus of moths, including
		 five new species and new data on distribution, host		 plants and recognition. More than 1,800 specimen
		 records of 60 species, associated with this research,
		 are published through GBIF.24
In addition, some academic institutions have publishedextensive datasets compiled by their own scientists in thecourse of their research, using their national GBIF nodes
to make the data globally accessible. Examples from 2012
include:		 A study of palm communities in Bolivia contributed to		 a dataset published by the Department of Bioscience		 at Aarhus University, Denmark, through DanBIF, the GBIF
		 national node. The dataset includes more than half		 a million transect records of palms in South and Central
		 America.25
		 A review of the diverse plant genus Acalypha in Ecuador
		 contributed to a dataset published by the biology
		 department of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, through		 GBIF-Spain. The dataset includes nearly 8,000 records
		 of the genus, including 68 species, from several South		 and Central American countries.26

15

Engaging new data publishing communities

Data capture: names and checklists

GBIF Secretariat teamed up with ICLEI – Local
Governments for Sustainability, an Associate
Participant, to author a new best practice guidefor local government professionals on publishingbiodiversity data.27

GBIF published three practical guides during 2012
to promote good practice in the capture of digitalbiodiversity data, adding to the suite of manuals
and guides available in the GBIF Online Resource
Centre (www.gbif.org/orc).

Supported by the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD), the guide aims to increase awareness of thetools and protocols available to publish biodiversity
data collected as part of local government planningand conservation work.

		 Guidelines for the capture and management
		 of digital zoological names information28
		 aims to promote consistency in the spelling		 and formats used for animal species and genera,		 to avoid costly and time-consuming subsequent		 efforts to link datasets referring to the same		 species. It builds on experience gathered over		 the years by AnimalBase, a project set up in		 2004 by the University of Göttingen in Germany		 to digitize early zoological literature.

The guide is helping ICLEI to engage local
governments around the world in biodiversity
data publishing, including the setting up of a data
hosting facility developed through a GBIF mentoring
partnership with the South African National
Biodiversity Institute (see p 21 on mentoring).

ERESUS SP. ONE OF THE FAMILY OF VELVET SPIDERS

		 Best practice guidelines in the development
		 and maintenance of regional marine species
		 checklists29 highlights some of the procedures		 and online resources to help build and maintain		 species checklists for marine regions.
PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTION
The publication was developed for GBIF by the Ocean
Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), the World
Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) and Fisheries
and Oceans Canada.

		 Best practice guide for compiling, maintaining
		 and disseminating national species checklists30
		 is a tool to help improve the capacity of a		 country to document, and thus better manage,
		 its biodiversity.
PARTICIPANT CONTRIBUTION
The guide was developed in collaboration with theSouth African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).
It draws on the particular experiences of South Africa’s
checklist development to offer insights and detailed
advice relevant to other countries.

16

Some key events in 2012

GBIF Science Symposium

GBIF Governing Board meeting

The 2012 GBIF Science Symposium, held alongside
the Governing Board meeting in Lillehammer,
Norway, showcased eight examples of significant
use of GBIF-mediated data in research.

The 19th meeting of the GBIF Governing Board(GB19) took place in Lillehammer, Norway on 18
and 20 September 2012.

The symposium, entitled GBIF at work – biodiversity
data at the service of science and society, focussed
especially on the role of occurrence data in helping
to predict the impacts of climate change on species
and ecosystems.

The 80 participants at GB19 represented 28
countries and five international organizations.
The Governing Board approved a revised budget
and Work Programme for 2013, taking account ofsevere financial constraints.

		 Using large datasets to help map the functions
		 evolved by plants and refine climate impact
		 models (Nathan Swenson, United States,		 see GBIF Science Awards on facing page)

Elections to GBIF standing committees included
Stephen Wilkinson (United Kingdom node manager)
as chair of the Nodes Committee. Wilkinson heads
the Access to Information programme at the Joint
Nature Conservation Committee, and helped
establish a National Biodiversity Network (NBN) tomobilize biodiversity data available across the UK.

		 Modelling the impacts of climate change on
		 future range shifts of more than 50,000 species
		 (Jeff Price, United Kingdom)

The new vice chairs of the Nodes Committee areAlex Asase, manager of the GBIF node in Ghana,and Manuel Vargas, node manager in Costa Rica.

		 Developing a tool to help plan ecologically		 sensitive siting of industrial developments		 (Peter Long/Kathy Willis, United Kingdom)

Other elections included new vice chairs of the
Budget Committee (Eli van der Heide and Walter
Berendsohn) and a new vice-chair of the Science
Committee (Mark Costello).

The research outlined at the symposium included:

		 Using data on prey and competitor species to		 help predict future distribution of threatened
		 Arctic Foxes in Fennoscandia (Anouschka Hof,
		 Sweden)
		 Assessing genetic diversity of northern plants
		 under a changing climate (Inger Alsos, Norway)
		 Analysing the diversity of species dependent
		 on dead wood (Jogeir Stokland, Norway)
		 Monitoring changes in the fruiting periods of		 fungi due to climate change (Håvard Kauserud,		 Norway)
		 Projecting the impact of climate and other		 pressures on Arctic seabird populations
		 (Falk Huettman, United States).
All presentations, together with audio interviews
with each of the presenters, are available via the
GBIF website.31

ATLANTIC PUFFIN (FRATERCULA ARCTICA), LATRABJARG, ICELAND© HENRIK THORBURN

17

Generating this type of data to inform models is basically not possible
without really good, large georeferenced databases like you have at GBIF.”
						– Nathan Swenson, winner, 2012 Ebbe Nielsen Prize.

GBIF Science Awards in 2012
The Ebbe Nielsen PrizeNathan Swenson, associate professor at the
Department of Plant Biology in Michigan State
University, United States, was the 2012 winner ofthe €30,000 Ebbe Nielsen Prize32, funded by GBIF
and awarded by the GBIF Science Committee.
Swenson’s work uses species distribution datato help understand how plants have evolved
different survival strategies in response to climate
conditions, and thereby model how future climatechange may affect ecosystem functions such as
plant growth and uptake of carbon.
The award money will contribute to a projectthat uses data published through GBIF, alongwith data from the iPlant Tree of Life programme,
for large-scale analysis of the climatic niches inplants. The analysis will be carried out jointlywith the Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity Group at
the Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University,
Denmark.
Swenson received his award during the 19th
GBIF Governing Board meeting in Lillehammer,
Norway and gave the keynote presentation at theassociated GBIF Science Symposium. A copy of thepresentation, along with an audio interview withNathan Swenson, is available on the GBIF website.33

georeferenced data to explore the splitting of thegeographical ranges of groups of organisms caused
by barriers to gene flow or species’ movement.
Elkin Tenorio Moreno analyses dispersal patternsof Amazonian and Andean birds across climatic andgeographic barriers, using GBIF-mediated data.

An additional seed grant of €4,000 was awarded to a Tanzanian master’s
student, Bujiku Kipondya, for research on the distribution of dung beetle
species at different altitudes in the Pare Mountains in northeast Tanzania.
In making the award, the Science Committee recognized the potential of
the project to publish important biodiversity data through TanBIF, theGBIF node for Tanzania.

The two winners of the 2011 Young ResearchersAward both published scientific papers in 2012,
acknowledging the contribution of GBIF. César
Antonio Ríos-Muñoz, from the National Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM), was lead author ofa study analysing biogeographic relationships
among 650 bird species in Mesoamerican forests(for details, see Science Review, p 12).34 Conor
Ryan, from Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in
Ireland, led a study into the use of tissue samples
to help analyse the diets of whales.35

Young Researchers Awards
The 2012 Young Researchers Award went toSalvador Arias, a PhD student at the Universidad
Nacional de Tucumán in Argentina, and Elkin Tenorio
Moreno, a master’s student at the Department of
Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes inColombia. Each will receive €4,000 to support
their work.
Salvador Arias has developed the Vicariance
Inference Programme (VIP), which uses

NATHAN SWENSON, WINNER OF THE 2012 EBBE NIELSEN PRIZE

18

Supporting global biodiversity policy

During 2012, GBIF continued to collaborate
with a range of partners to ensure that its workis efficiently aligned with other initiatives andprocesses involving delivery of biodiversity
information to policy makers.

Intergovernmental Science Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
GBIF contributed during 2012 to discussions of thework programme and functions of the new IPBES.
The two bodies have fully complementary roles.
GBIF offers foundations of data access, content
mobilization and national capacity essential to thework of IPBES in improving the interface between
science and policy. IPBES in turn is expected to
identify gaps and requirements that will guidepriorities for GBIF’s work on data publishing andaccess.
At the plenary meeting in April in Panama City,
Panama where governments formally agreed toestablish IPBES, GBIF Secretariat held a jointside event with the International Union for theConservation of Nature (IUCN) and UNEP-World
Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC).
The theme was how existing initiatives on
biodiversity data, information and knowledge
could best contribute to the work of IPBES.
During the intersessional period between the
Panama meeting and the first formal IPBES meetingin January 2013, GBIF Secretariat contributed toconsultations on the capacity building role of IPBES
and the scoping process for assessments. The
submissions can be found on the IPBES website.36

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
At the Conference of Parties to the Convention on
Biological Diversity (COP 11), in Hyderabad, India,
in October, GBIF supported several initiatives toenhance the quantity and quality of data available
to monitor the state of biodiversity and ecosystems.
With a number of other partners, the GBIF
Secretariat signed a Memorandum of Collaboration
with the CBD to set up a Global Invasive Alien
Species Information Partnership (GIASIP), aimed at
improving the information available to governments
to help tackle this major driver of biodiversity loss.37
A decision of the COP relating to invasive alien
species welcomed GBIF’s work to bring together
databases relating to invasive species, facilitating
their use by governments to develop early detection
and rapid response systems.
Also during COP 11:
		 The GBIF Secretariat hosted a side event		 to report progress on the Global Biodiversity
		 Informatics Outlook (see facing page).
		 Another side event presented initiatives 				 involving GBIF partners to encourage online
		 publication of biodiversity data from new		 sources, including data from camera traps set
		 by wildlife managers in India, data collected by		 local governments and from environmental
		 impact assessments.
		 GBIF Executive Secretary Donald Hobern		 presented on the mobilization of botanical		 data in support of the Global Strategy for		 Plant Conservation (GSPC) and its national
		 implementation.

19

EMERALD ASH BORER (AGRILUS PLANIPENNIS), AN INVASIVE SPECIES © USDA

Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity
Observation Network (GEO-BON)
GBIF continued to participate in GEO-BON,
which aims to organize and improve biodiversity
observations globally and make their data,
information and forecasts more readily available.
The executive secretary, Donald Hobern,
represented GBIF in discussions on datainteroperability and support for data modellingat the GEO BON All-hands Meeting in Asilomar,
California, in December.
GBIF is also participating in the new European
Biodiversity Observation Network (EU BON), fundedby the European Union. The four and a half year
project, costing €9 million, includes a €300,000
package of work contributed by GBIF, focussing
largely on data standards and interoperability.
EU BON is led by the Museum für Naturkunde,
Berlin.
BRAULIO DIAS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, CBD, AND DONALD HOBERN,EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, GBIF, SIGNING THE MEMORANDUM ON INVASIVE
SPECIES INFORMATION.

Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference
Together with the University of Copenhagen, the GBIF
Secretariat co-hosted the Global Biodiversity Informatics
Conference (GBIC) in July.38
GBIC brought together around 100 experts from the fields of
biodiversity policy, science and informatics to build collaboration
for better evidence and models that can help our understandingof the living planet, and so improve decision making.
The conference heard plenary presentations on big datain science, research infrastructures and the revolution inunderstanding the microbiome. Cross-disciplinary workshops
then developed a series of key focal areas to ensure that allavailable evidence about biodiversity is captured and sharedin a way that supports science and policy.
A Global Biodiversity Informatics Outlook (GBIO) is drawing
together the outcomes of the conference in a framework to
help prioritize funding and collaboration in coming years.
EXTERNAL FUNDING
The GBIC was jointly funded from GBIF core funds, the CReATIVE-B
Project39, the Aage V Jensen Charity Foundation40 and the JRS
Biodiversity Foundation.41

Collectively, we have to ensure as a priority thatbiodiversity observations are made at the resolution andfrequency that is necessary to enable detecting trends
and that the data are managed in such a way that they
are available and compatible to determine these trends.”– Braulio Dias, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity, message
to the Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference.

20

21

Building a global biodiversity information community
GBIF’s collective outputs are the result of a great
variety of activities involving dozens of Participant
countries and organizations, and hundreds ofindividuals worldwide. To reflect this diversity, the2012 Annual Report departs from earlier editions
by presenting an overview for each of the six global
regions currently recognized in the GBIF governancestructure. We hope this helps to reflect the vibrancyof the network and to showcase the many examples
of capacity enhancement, data mobilization andscience uses that the GBIF infrastructure enables
in six continents.
The section begins with an overview of some of
the global programmes to enhance capacity inbiodiversity informatics.

Mentoring and training
The GBIF mentoring programme was initiated in2003 to share expertise and support between
Participants. In 2012, three projects were selected
to receive support. GBIF national nodes in Japan,
Australia and South Africa will act as mentors in the
projects involving institutions in Indonesia, Costa
Rica and some 20 local governments affiliated to
ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability.

Japan-Indonesia mentoring project
GBIF Japan is helping the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences (LIPI), which hosts the national node,to establish a network for the management of
biodiversity information. The Japanese node isproviding training for Indonesian colleagues tohelp develop a national plan for managing andpublishing data (see also Asia regional summaryon p 26).

PARTICIPATION IN THE GBIF NETWORK AT THE END OF 2012

VOTING PARTICIPANTSASSOCIATE COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
PRE-2012 PARTICIPANTS** Participants whose signature of the 2012+ memorandumof understanding was still pending by year end.

Australia-Costa Rica mentoring project
The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) is mentoring
Costa Rica’s GBIF node CRBio, hosted at thenational biodiversity body INBio. The collaborationis helping to define a national strategy and action
plan to mobilize and publish data through the node.
A national workshop on biodiversity informatics isplanned, and a group of software developers from
INBio will be trained to adapt technology developedby ALA to suit Costa Rica’s needs.
ICLEI/SANBI mentoring project
The South African Biodiversity Information Facility(SABIF) acts as mentor to ICLEI, the global networkof local governments whose Local Action on
Biodiversity centre is based in Cape Town. Staff fromabout 20 local governments from cities around theworld are being trained in using tools and standards
supported by GBIF to enable biodiversity data to
be published and freely accessed (see p 15). The
project supported training events in Kigali, Rwanda;
Cape Town, South Africa; and Hyderabad, India, aspart of the Cities for Life Summit associated with
the COP11 meeting.

Regional training support
GBIF provides support for regional training activities
through an open call. The events are organized byParticipant nodes for members of the GBIF networkfrom within the same region, and are aimed atstrengthening regional capacity and collaboration.
They are also an opportunity to train biodiversity
information specialists from non-Participant
countries in the region, helping with outreach toexpand the network.
Four regional training events were selected forsupport in 2012, benefiting 91 individuals andinvolving 25 countries and organizations. Sixteen
GBIF Participants benefited directly from these
support grants, and they provided outreach
opportunities to nine countries that are not yet
members of GBIF.
Regional training events are listed in the following
pages.

22

23

GBIF in Africa

Regional activity profile
Sixteen African countries and four organizations based in Africa – the Albertine Rift Conservation
Organization (ARCOS), Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability andInternational Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) – were GBIF Participants in 2012. Together,
they had published some nine million biodiversity records to the GBIF network by the end of the year. The
total volume of data on African biodiversity was nearly double that figure, with the remainder published byinstitutions from outside the continent (see figure 10). A major focus of activity in the region has been training
and collaboration between GBIF nodes to build up capacity in African countries to manage biodiversity data.

UGANDA: Regional training eventon biodiversity information
standards and protocols (July)
Location: Kampala
Organizer: UgaBIF
30 participants
Partners: ARCOS, Kenya, Republicof Congo, South Africa, Tanzania
and Uganda
Supported by GBIF core funds.

Some highlights of data publishing,use and events

PRIMARY BIODIVERSITY RECORDS (MILLIONS)
25
ALL DATA AVAILABLE THROUGH GBIFABOUT BIODIVERSITY IN AFRICA

20

GHANA: 85,000 records of morethan 10,000 plant species from the
University of Ghana’s herbarium,
which has one of the largest
collections in West Africa. The
dataset was the first to be publishedby the GBIF node for Ghana,following a mentoring project withNLBIF, the Dutch national node.
Publisher: Ghana Biodiversity
Information Facility (GhaBIF)

RWANDA: Course on data quality,
maintenance, publishing andoutreach (September)
Location: Kigali
Organizer: ARCOS
18 participants

TANZANIA: Checklist of bird species
from 370 genera with information
on scientific names, common names
in English and vernacular names in
Swahili. Endemic birds are marked
on the list.
Publisher: Tanzania Biodiversity
Information Facility (TanBIF)

DATA PUBLISHED BY COUNTRYPARTICIPANTS IN AFRICA
15

TRAINING

NEW DATADATA USE

10

5

0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

FIGURE 10. TREND IN DATA RELATING TO AFRICA

20%

80%

DATA PUBLISHED BY
COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
IN AFRICA BY KINGDOMANIMALIA

2013

BENIN: Workshop on information
technology for management,
integration and dissemination of
biodiversity Information (November)
Location: Cotonou
Organizer: CRBio

BENIN: Conserving genetic diversityof food crops in West Africa
A research team from Benin,
China and the United Kingdom
identified 20 priority plant species
for conservation, based on theirrelatedness to crops used by local
people. The data used for theinventory included herbarium
records accessed through GBIF.
For details, see Science Review, p 20.

GREY-BREASTED SPURFOWL (PTERNISTIS RUFOPICTUS)© YATHIN S KRISHNAPPA

MADAGASCAR: Prioritizing marine
protected areas
A peer-reviewed study used records
for 274 fish species, published by
the Ocean Biogeographic Information
System (OBIS), and accessed using
GBIF, to calculate and compare
the biodiversity value of potential
protected areas in Madagascar’s
coastal waters. For details, see
Science Review, p 13.

VOTING PARTICIPANTSASSOCIATE COUNTRYPARTICIPANTS
PRE-2012 PARTICIPANTS

SOUTH AFRICA: Data fitness-for-use
training workshop (June)
Location: Cape Town
Organizer: SABIF
20 participants

PLANTAE

FIGURE 11.

SUN DRYING OF PIPER GUINEENSE FRUITS © IITA

SOUTH AFRICA: Workshop on using
R for species distribution modelling(November)
Location: Stellenbosch
Organizer: SABIF
15 participants

SOUTH AFRICA: Biodiversity
georeferencing training workshop(November)
Location: Pietermaritzburg
Organizer: SABIF
12 participants

ESTUARIES, NORTHWEST COAST OF MADAGASCAR© NASA

24

25

GBIF in Asia

News and events from Africa

Third meeting of the African nodes
17-18 July, Kigali, Rwanda
Hosted by the Albertine Rift Conservation Society(ARCOS), in collaboration with the Centre forGeographic Information Systems of the National
University of Rwanda.
Fifteen African country nodes and internationalorganizations participated in the meeting.
FATIMA PARKER-ALLIEREGIONAL NODE REPRESENTATIVE,
SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL
BIODIVERSITY INSTITUTE (SANBI)The Participants discussed establishment of an
African coordination mechanism for GBIF, including
a data mobilization strategy, capacity development
and regional engagement. The meeting also
proposed an Africa science committee, addressing
key research questions and priority areas for theregion.
The South African National Biodiversity Institute(SANBI), which hosts the GBIF node in South
Africa, received a grant from the JRS foundation
to support work in the region, including funding
for a regional coordinator position. SANBI has
initiated and developed a project together with
the GBIF Secretariat involving gap analysis ofexisting biodiversity data in the region, with afocus on mobilizing checklist data.

Citizen science – new portal launched in South
AfricaThe South African National Biodiversity Institute(SANBI) launched a new portal enabling the
public to record and exchange information aboutbiodiversity. The iSpot southern Africa portal(www.ispot.org.za) is operated in collaboration
with the United Kingdom’s Open University, which
set up the iSpot citizen science platform in 2008.
The portal was launched during the Fourth
Biodiversity Information Management Forum,at Kirstenbosch near Cape Town, which brought
together 29 South African and 16 internationalorganizations. After the launch, around 150
scientists and members of the public took partin a bioblitz at the nearby Kenilworth Racecourse
Conservation Area, recording as many species as
possible and posting the data on the iSpot portal.

Tanzanian capacity enhancement project comesto a close
The multi-year pilot project to develop capacity inbiodiversity informatics in Tanzania was formallywrapped up in 2012. The Danish government funded
the project through the GBIF Capacity Enhancement
Programme for Developing Countries (CEPDEC).
Outputs included the portal of the Tanzanian
Biodiversity Information Facility (TanBIF, www.tanbif.
or.tz), a decision-making tool based on the opensource Quantum-GIS software42, and a checklist of
Tanzanian species.

Regional activity profile
Six Asian countries were GBIF Participants in 2012 (see map on next page). Activities relating to GBIF in Asia
also involved two regional organizations – the ASEAN Center for Biodiversity (ACB) and the International
Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) – and Chinese Taipei, which under GBIF governanceis an Associate Participant classed as an ‘economy’. Between them, these Participants published nearly six
million records, with approximately the same volume of data about Asian biodiversity mobilized from GBIF
nodes outside the region. 2012 saw progress on collaboration among Participants in Asia to develop capacity
on management and use of biodiversity data.

2%

PRIMARY BIODIVERSITY RECORDS (MILLIONS)

1%

46%

51%

14
12

ALL DATA AVAILABLE THROUGH GBIFABOUT BIODIVERSITY IN ASIA

10DATA PUBLISHED BY COUNTRYPARTICIPANTS IN ASIA

DATA PUBLISHED BY
COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
IN ASIA BY KINGDOM

8
6
4
2
0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

FIGURE 12. TREND IN DATA RELATING TO ASIA

Third and fourth meetings of Asian
nodes
PINCUSHION AT KIRSTENBOSCH © DEREK KEATSSHEILA G. VERGARAREGIONAL NODE REPRESENTATIVE,
ASEAN CENTRE FOR BIODIVERSITY

The GBIF nodes for Asia held two meetings
during 2012: the first, organized by GBIFJapan, took place in Tokyo from 1-2 Marchand was funded by the Japanese Ministryof Environment. Participants discussed
a preliminary strategy for collaboration
between Asian nodes on the scientific useof GBIF-mediated data, and a regional work
programme.
The other meeting, organized by TaiBIF (GBIF
Chinese Taipei) with support from GBIF corefunds, took place in Taipei. This meeting
agreed the major components of a regional
action plan for Asia, recognizing the limited
volume of openly-accessible biodiversity
data in the region.

ANIMALIA

PLANTAE

FUNGI

BACTERIA

FIGURE 13.

The plan for Asia foresees two collaborative
scientific initiatives: one will involve national
species checklists, including invasive,
threatened, endemic and migratory bird
species for comparative study; and the otherfocuses on updating databases to assess
the risk of fish biodiversity loss in Asia.
The Asia regional plan also addresses
strategies for mobilizing data in the region,and strengthening biodiversity informationand engagement.

26

27

GBIF in Asia 2012: some highlights of data publishing, use and events

National biodiversity information ‘grid’ proposed for India
Proposals to unlock the large volumes of Indian data currently
inaccessible to decision-makers and the public, via a ‘national
grid’ for biodiversity information, gained backing from leading
government advisers.
The project is coordinated by India’s Ministry of Environment andForests, National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) and the Wildlife
Institute of India (WII), which hosts the national GBIF node.
It was outlined at the launch of a draft National Biodiversity
Information Outlook on the sidelines of 11th Conference of Parties
to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP11), held inHyderabad in October.

TRAINING

NEW DATADATA USENEPAL: Regional training event on
biodiversity data publishing in the
Hindu Kush-Himalayas (August)
Location: Kathmandu
Organizer: International
Centre for Integrated Mountain
Development
Partners: Chinese Taipei, India
and Pakistan
22 participants
Supported by GBIF core funds.

CHINESE TAIPEI: Regional training
event on sharing biodiversity
information and the Integrated
Publishing Toolkit (IPT2) (June)
Location: Jiji Town
Organizer: TaiBIF
Partners: ASEAN Centre for
Biodiversity, International Centre forIntegrated Mountain Development,
India, Pakistan and Republic of Korea
13 participants
Supported by GBIF core funds.

CHINA: Modelling the spread of aninvasive species
A research team from China forecast
the potential spread of the Brown
Marmorated Stink Bug, a major
agricultural pest. Information on
the native range of the species in
East Asia was obtained partly fromdatabases in Japan, South Korea
and Chinese Taipei publishing data
through GBIF.
For details, see Science Review, p 3.

Funding support from Japan towards mentoring
GBIF Japan is to receive six million Yen (about €63,000) over three
years from Tokyo’s National Museum of Nature and Science, formentoring projects primarily in Southeast Asia, with an initial
focus on Indonesia. The funding complements the mentoring
project between Japan and Indonesia approved by the
Secretariat as part of the 2012 GBIF mentoring programme.

JAPAN: Five datasets from fivemunicipal and prefectural museums,
covering 15,900 records, and 30,000
records from the bird collectionsof the Yamashina Institute for
Ornithology.
Publisher: National Museum of
Nature and Science, JapanSCISSORS TURTLE BUG (ACANTHOSOMA LABIDUROIDES)BROWN MARMORATED STINK BUG (HALYOMORPHA HALYS)© USGS BEE INVENTORY AND MONITORINGINDIA: Impact of river engineering
projects on fish biodiversity
A peer-reviewed study examined how
a major project to link eight Indian
river basins through a network ofcanals would affect the diversity offish species. Using data on more than
450 species obtained partly through
GBIF, it warned of widespread
negative impacts and recommended
changes in the design of the
project to help conserve freshwater
biodiversity.
For details, see Science Review, p 16.

MOLIPTERYX FULIGINOSA © KENPEITIBETAN PLATEAU: 163,000 recordsof plant species related to the
Tibetan Plateau in Central Asia.
Data were collected over 50 years,
in 13 countries, by more than 2,200
collectors from all over the world.
Publisher: Global Mountain
Biodiversity Assessment(Switzerland)

MALAYSIA: Checklists of amphibians,
ferns, mangroves, moss and reptiles
published by the Bioinformatics
Research Group based at the
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor.
Endorsed by: ASEAN Centre for
Biodiversity

THAILAND: Checklist of plant
species at the Huai Kaeo Arboretumin Chiang Mai, published by the
Department of National Parks,
Wildlife and Plant Conservation,
Thailand.
Endorsed by: ASEAN Centre for
Biodiversity

VOTING PARTICIPANTSASSOCIATE COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
PRE-2012 PARTICIPANTSKRISHNA RIVER GORGE, ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA

TIBET LANDSCAPE © LUO SHAOYANGGREEN CAT SNAKE (BOIGA CYANEA)© BERNARD DUPONTJACARANDA OBTUSIFOLIA SSP. RHOMBIFOLIA© DINESH VALKE

28

29

GBIF in Europe

Regional activity profile
The European region of GBIF includes 22 country Participants, together publishing nearly 190 million
biodiversity records. Nine Associate Organization Participants have also been involved in regional activities.
During 2012, the European nodes organized a variety of training events, developed innovative tools for thecapture and curation of digital biodiversity data, and mobilized much new observational data from citizen
science networks and bioblitzes.
2%

PRIMARY BIODIVERSITY RECORDS (MILLIONS)

160
140

51%

42%

200
180

1%

Norway upgraded its map-based
species portal Artskart (http://
artskart.artsdatabanken.no). The newversion includes an English interface
and smarter quality control features,
including one that eliminates obvious
georeferencing mistakes whendata are uploaded from the source
databases.

ALL DATA AVAILABLE THROUGH GBIFABOUT BIODIVERSITY IN EUROPE

DATA PUBLISHED BY
COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
IN EUROPE BY KINGDOMDATA PUBLISHED BY COUNTRYPARTICIPANTS IN EUROPE

120

European data portals
The Belgian Biodiversity Platform,
which acts as the GBIF national node,developed a website for the flora of
Belgium, gathering 23,000 checklistsof vascular plants compiled since 1939
(http://projects.biodiversity.be/ifbl/).
The website includes over 2.5 million
observation records of more than
2,800 species, making it a powerfultool to visualize the distribution ofvascular plants in the country.

100
80
60
40

4%

20
0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

FIGURE 14. TREND IN DATA RELATING TO EUROPE

News and events from Europe
Advancing digitization
GBIF Finland demonstrated an innovative system for
digitizing natural history records, using conveyor belts
and mounted cameras to capture images of a thousand
plant or insect specimens each day.

ANIMALIA

FUNGIPLANTAE

PROTOZOAUNKNOWN

FIGURE 15.

In another project, the National Museum of Natural History(MNHN), host of the GBIF national node for France, invited
volunteers to transcribe information from around six
million scanned images of labelled plant specimens fromits herbarium. The website http://lesherbonautes.mnhn.fr
is operated in collaboration with the Tela Botanica networkfor francophone countries.

It was custom-built by Digitarium, the digitization centreof the Finnish Museum of Natural History and Universityof Eastern Finland.
ONE OF THE PLANT SPECIMEN IMAGES AWAITING DIGITIZATION BY VOLUNTEERSTHROUGH THE HERBONAUTES PROJECT.

The map service provides accessto nearly 13 million records, withoccurrence data for over 26,000
species, from 30 source institutions
and nearly 100 databases. Most of thedata are published globally via the
GBIF network.

Citizen science
Ireland’s National Biodiversity Data
Centre (NBDC), which hosts the GBIF
node, organized another bioblitz in
May 2012. It is an annual event inwhich members of the public gather
in selected locations to identify the
maximum number of living species
within a 24-hour period. The winninglocation this year was Crawfordsburn
Country Park, where volunteers
recorded no fewer than 980 species.
More than 8,000 species occurrence
records from the 2012 bioblitz were
published via the GBIF network.
The NBDC also published around16,000 records from the Atlas of Irish
mammals survey, which documents
the distribution of the 64 species ofmammals that are known to occur in
Ireland.

Secure funding for GBIF nodes
The Heritage Council of Ireland,
an independent statutory advisory
council to the government, recognized
the value of the National Biodiversity
Data Centre and secured its funding
for the next five years.
The government of the Netherlands,
meanwhile, provided the GBIF node
NLBIF with a structural positionand corresponding funding. The
decision recognized the importanceof maintaining a stable GBIF node asa coordinating body and open data
platform for biodiversity.

Crossing borders for biodiversity
collaboration
The BalticDiversity project (http://balticdiversity.eu/), launched in 2012,
will create a transboundary networkof national databases in the region.
It connects data from major natural
history museums and collectionsin Estonia, Finland and Sweden,
including several GBIF partner
institutions. The project will include aninteractive online information service,with the aim of improving decisionmaking, research and education aboutbiodiversity in the Central Baltic Sea
region.
Another transboundary platform
launched in 2012 was a Biodiversity
Portal of the Greater Region, whichlies between the Rhine, Mosel, Sarre
and Meuse rivers and includes partsof Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany
and France (www.bio-gr.eu). The
aim of the portal, developed by the
Belgian Biodiversity Platform, is tohelp implement European Union
nature directives through a habitat
network to connect up importantnatural areas across the various
administrative borders within theregion.

Tools for curating biodiversity data
AnnoSys, a system to enable adding
comments to biodiversity data
available via the Internet, was tested
in prototype by the Botanic Garden
and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem(BGBM), host of the GBIF Germannode.
The system will help correct errors andrectify omissions through community
input, thus acting as an importantquality control mechanism.
The University of Navarra in Spaindeveloped an online tool to visualize
the content of datasets published to
the GBIF network. The BIoDiversity
DataSets Assessment Tool (BIDDSAT)
helps potential users to assess thefitness for use of datasets and bringup issues for correction.
(www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=4696)

Fourth meeting of Europeannodes
27-29 March, Berlin, Germany
55 participants from 13 countries andthree organizations.
At the meeting, the European nodes
discussed and agreed on an action
plan to boost collaboration with the
BioFresh Initiative, an EU-funded
project to build a global platform fordatabases on freshwater biodiversity.
The focus of the regional collaboration
will be a demonstration project on
mobilizing data, including checklists,
on freshwater invasive species.
CEES HOF
REGIONAL NODE REPRESENTATIVE,NLBIF FOUNDATION / UNIVERSITY
OF AMSTERDAM

30

31

GBIF in Europe 2012: some highlights of data publishing, use and events

TRAINING

NEW DATADATA USEVOTING PARTICIPANTS

IRELAND: More than 31,000 records
of marine species observed byvolunteer sports divers around the
Irish coastline. From the Seasearch
project, which offers courses todivers to help them identify andrecord marine life.
Publisher: National Biodiversity
Data Centre

UK: Predicting alien species
invasions
A team from Oxford University’s
Edward Grey Institute used 408
records of 99 amphibian species,
accessed via GBIF, to draw
conclusions about why some
introduced species establish
themselves in their new environment,
and others do not.
For details, see Science Review, p 3.

NORWAY: Assessing climate
impacts on Arctic and alpine plants
A research team from Tromsø
University Museum analysed theimpacts of climate change on 27
northern plant species, using nearly
10,000 DNA samples from 1,200
populations. Among other data, thestudy used validated GBIF-mediatedoccurrence points for those species
to predict the loss of range andgenetic diversity by 2080. See moredetails in Science Review, p 8.

ASSOCIATE COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
PRE-2012 PARTICIPANTSGERMANY: 3.9 million records ofvascular plants from Floraweb, an
online database of vegetation inGermany.
Publisher: The German Federal
Agency for Nature Conservation

DENMARK: Nearly two million recordsof vascular plants, recorded under anationwide monitoring programme.
Publisher: DanBIF

THOROGOBIUS EPHIPPIATUS © STEFANO GUERRIERIBELGIUM: 3.4 million records of over
2,800 species of vascular plants of
Flanders and the Brussels region.
Publisher: Research Institute for
Nature and Forest (INBO)

ESTONIA: 166,500 records fromcitizen observations of Estonian
species.
Publisher: Estonian Environment
Information Centre

EUROPEAN ROBIN (ERITHACUS RUBECULA) © PIERRE SELIMEUROPEAN POLECATS (MUSTELA PUTORIUS)© MALENE THYSSEN

TRIGLOCHIN MARITIMA © SABINE VON MERING/BGBM
FIELD FORGET-ME-NOT (MYOSOTIS ARVENSIS)© CHRISTOPHE QUINTIN

FRANCE: Workshops on persistentidentifiers (June) and biodiversity
data quality and use (October)
Location: Paris
Organizer: GBIF France
70 participants

SWITZERLAND: Over a million
records of butterflies, dragonflies andorthoptera – grasshoppers, crickets
and locusts – from 1835 onwards.
Publisher: The Centre Suisse deCartographie de la Faune

VERONICA OFFICINALIS © WOUTER VAN LANDUYTANAGALLIS TENELLA © WOUTER VAN LANDUYTSPAIN: Training course on persistentidentifiers (February)
Location: Madrid
Organizers: GBIF Secretariat, GBIF Spain
28 participants
Videos from the course are available
on GBIF Spain’s website atwww.gbif.es/videos/videos_in.php.

SPAIN: Three e-learning workshops
on data quality, sensitive data anddata recording for technicians innatural history collections(February-October)
Organizer: GBIF Spain
81 participants from 13 countries

GERMANY: Six national workshops
to mobilize data for the GBIF
network using Diversity Workbench
management software (January–
October)
Location: Munich
Organizer: GBIF Germany
64 participants

RED ADMIRAL BUTTERFLY (VANESSA ATALANTA)

THE NETHERLANDS: 380,000
records published from the Piscaria
database, used as the country’s
standard for the storage andanalysis of fish data.
Publisher: The Royal Dutch Angling
Association

EUROPEAN BULLHEAD (COTTUS GOBIO)© HANS HILLEWAERT

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33

GBIF in Latin America

Regional activity profile
Ten countries in Latin America were Participants in GBIF by the end of 2012. Brazil’s entry as an Associate
Participant in October was an important milestone for the network. Three regional organizations also
participated in the region: BioNet-AndinoNet, the Inter American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN)
and Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo (CYTED). Some seven million biodiversity records were publishedfrom Latin America, and nearly double that volume of data about Latin American biodiversity is accessible
through GBIF from publishers outside the region. A strong focus of activity in the region has been training
and other collaboration to enhance capacity for biodiversity data publishing.

TRAINING

PRIMARY BIODIVERSITY RECORDS (MILLIONS)NEW DATADATA USECOSTA RICA: Workshop on
information technology for the
management, integration andsharing of biodiversity data
(February-March)
Location: Santo Domingo de
Heredia
Organizer: The Costa Rican
Biodiversity Information Facility(CRBio)COLOMBIA: 5,250 records of
captures and recaptures of bandedor ringed birds in the Sierra Nevadade Santa Marta, a mountain range
near Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
Publisher: Asociación Selva

VOTING PARTICIPANTSASSOCIATE COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
PRE-2012 PARTICIPANTS

30

25

ALL DATA AVAILABLE THROUGH GBIFABOUT BIODIVERSITY IN LATIN AMERICA

20DATA PUBLISHED BY COUNTRYPARTICIPANTS IN LATIN AMERICA

15

10

5

0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

KEEL-BILLED TOUCAN (RAMPHASTOS SULFURATUS)© JOACHIM S.MUELLER

MEXICO: Modelling deer
population density
A team from Mexico used dataobtained through GBIF and its
Mexican partner CONABIO to model
the relative abundance of whitetailed deer in different parts of its
range. The modelling system used
is proposed as a valuable tool inconservation of the species.
For details, see Science Review, p 13.

BRAZIL: Introduction to GBIF
participation (December)
Location: Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro
Organizers: MCTI, GBIF Secretariat

ARGENTINA: 365 records ofamphibians in the country.
Publisher: Centro Nacional
Patagonico – CONICET

FIGURE 16. TREND IN DATA RELATING TO LATIN AMERICA

1%
1%

1%
WHITE-TAILED DEER (ODOCOILEUS VIRGINIANUS)© SCOTT BAUER / USDA

35%

62%

COSTA RICA: Workshop on tools
for the management and sharing of
biodiversity data (October)
Location: San José de Costa Rica
Organizer: The Costa Rican
Biodiversity Information Facility(CRBio)DATA PUBLISHED BY
COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
IN LATIN AMERICABY KINGDOMANIMALIAFIGURE 17.

PLANTAEFUNGIPROTOZOACHROMISTA

COLOMBIA: Regional training on
Biological Collections 3.0 (October)
Location: Villa de Leyva
Organizer: SiB – Colombia andGBIF Spain
26 participants
Supported by GBIF core funds.

AMAZON REGION: Determining thefuture distribution of plant species
Using herbarium records obtained
through GBIF and Brazil’s
SpeciesLink (http://splink.cria.
org.br), researchers from theUnited States and United Kingdom
modelled the current and future
distributions of nearly 3,000
Amazonian plant species. The
study concluded that the future
diversity of the Amazon would
depend primarily on the ability of
species to tolerate or adapt to risingtemperatures.
For details, see Science Review, p 9.

COLOMBIA: Setting priorities
for plant conservation in SouthAmerica
Researchers from Colombia, theUnited Kingdom and United States
analysed records of more than halfa million GBIF-mediated recordsof 16,000 plant species, to identify
critical areas for conservationof plant diversity across SouthAmerica.
For details, see Science Review, p 12.

CHILE: National workshop on
biodiversity informatics (March)
Location: Santiago de Chile
Organizer: GBIF Chile and CRBio
28 participants

ODONTOPHRYNUS AMERICANUS © RAÚL MANEYROARGENTINA: 4,200 records ofgrassland plovers from periodic
counts between 2006 and 2010.
Publisher: Argentinian Ministry of
Science, Technology and Innovation

ARGENTINA: Workshop on collection
digitization methods (September)
Location: Puerto Madryn
Organizer: Centro Nacional
Patagónico – CENPAT, with thesupport of GBIF Spain
37 participants, mainly curators andtechnicians working on biologicalcollections in the country.

34

35

News and events from Latin America

Brazil joins GBIF
The megadiverse country of Brazil joined
GBIF as Associate Participant in 2012, paving
the way for integrating a large volume of
biodiversity data into the network from
Brazilian research institutions, museums,
herbaria and observational networks.

ANGELA SUAREZ-MAYORGAREGIONAL NODE REPRESENTATIVE,
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON
BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES, COLOMBIAThe minister for science, technology andinnovation, Marco Antonio Raupp, signed
the GBIF Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) in October. Brazil’s head of delegation
to the GBIF Governing Board, Carlos Nobre,
commented: “The official association of thecountry with GBIF is a sign of the importanceof knowledge for the management of ourimmense natural resources.”
Brazil’s participation in GBIF is associatedwith the setting up of the Information
System for Brazilian Biodiversity andEcosystems (www.sibbr.gov.br/), a projectof the ministry for science, technology andinnovation (MCTI), in partnership with the
Global Environment Facility (GEF), involving
an investment of US$28 million. The MCTI’s
National Centre of Scientific Computing(LNCC) hosts the node both for GBIF and
SiB-Br.

COSTA RICA BIOBLITZ 2012 © F. HIDALGO/INBIOGBIF in North America

New portals in Chile and Colombia
GBIF Chile developed a portal on the
country’s biodiversity in 2012, thanks to amentoring project involving the Costa Rican
National Biodiversity Institute (INBio), hostof the country’s GBIF node.
The Chilean portal provides access to morethan 19,000 records published by Chilean
institutions via the GBIF network. Amongthe main data publishers are the National
Museum of Natural History and the Universityof La Serena.

Regional activity profile
The North America region of GBIF consists of two country Participants, the United States and Canada.
Together, these countries published nearly 140 million records in 2012. A distinctive feature of GBIF activity
in the region is the involvement of 11 international organizations and several data publishing networks
including VertNet and the Avian Knowledge Network in the United States, and Canadensys in Canada.

1%
10%
PRIMARY BIODIVERSITY RECORDS (MILLIONS)

89%

160

The portal can be accessed at http://gbifchile.mma.gob.cl/portal.
Colombia’s national node also launched
a new portal using GBIF tools. Details arehighlighted in box 3 on page 11.

140

ALL DATA AVAILABLE THROUGH GBIF ABOUT
BIODIVERSITY IN NORTH AMERICA

120

DATA PUBLISHED BY COUNTRYPARTICIPANTS IN NORTH AMERICADATA PUBLISHED BY
COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
IN NORTH AMERICABY KINGDOM

100
80
60
40

Bioblitz breaks new ground in Costa Rica
INBio organized Costa Rica’s first everbioblitz in May, bringing together members of
the public to identify the maximum numberof species at a particular location. The event
was held at the INBioparque, created in2000 to help citizens learn about Costa Rica’s
nature.
Among 206 species reported during theevent was a Long-tailed Manakin (Chiroxiphia
linearis), not sighted in the area before.
INBio launched a new citizen science portal,
Bioexplorador (http://bioexplorador.inbio.
ac.cr/), in conjunction with the bioblitz.

20
0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

ANIMALIAFIGURE 18. TREND IN DATA RELATING TO NORTH AMERICAFIGURE 19.

Third meeting of North American nodes

Highlights included:

23-24 July, Washington DC
The United States, through the Smithsonian Institution
and USGS as the GBIF Participant node, organized the2012 meeting of North American nodes, with supportof GBIF core funds.
Twenty-three people participated in the meeting withan additional seven online participants, representing
a total of 22 organizations.
ROBERT HANNER, REGIONAL NODE REPRESENTATIVE, INTERNATIONAL BARCODE OF
LIFE (IBOL), CANADA.

PLANTAEFUNGI		 Agreement to develop a regional strategy,
		 based on the goals expressed in the GBIF
		 2012-16 Strategic Plan. Major objectives are		 to foster joint collaboration between
		 organizations on informatics development,
		 content mobilization and use, and community
		 engagement.
		 Node managers and invited speakers identified
		 plants and invasive alien species as possible		 candidates for a regional thematic focus, and		 planned to utilize the region’s strengths in		 genomic and taxonomic expertise to continue
		 furthering the GBIF network.

36

37

GBIF in North America 2012: some highlights of data publishing, use and events

TRAINING

NEW DATADATA USE

UNITED STATES: Over 100,000
records of non-native aquatic
species. The records include species
exotic to North America, such as the
Asian carp and zebra mussel, andfish species which have been moved
from their native habitats on thecontinent into other watersheds,
such as the bluegill and thelargemouth bass.
Publisher: United States Geological
Survey (USGS)UNITED STATES: 29,000 records
used in a study tracking patterns ofwidespread decline in North
American bumblebees.
Publisher: US Department ofAgriculture (USDA)- ARS Bee
Biology and Systematics Laboratory,
located at Utah State University

CANADA: 395,000 records of plantsfrom herbarium collections in the
country.
Publishers: TRTE Herbarium at the
University of Toronto at Mississauga,
EC Smith Herbarium at the Acadia
University in Nova Scotia, Universityof British Columbia Herbarium,
Jardin Botanique de Montréal,Louis-Marie Herbarium based at theLaval University in Québec. Records
published through the Canadensys
data repository.

News and events from North America
Canadian data explorer launched
The Canadensys data repository launched a new explorer
tool, allowing users to explore, filter, visualize anddownload all the specimen records published throughthe Montreal-based network.
The Canadensys explorer (data.canadensys.net/explorer)aggregates 19 published collections, comprising over 1.2
million occurrence records of which over 70% are from
Canada. The Canadensys Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT)
is used to publish datasets through the GBIF network.

BLUE GILL (LEPOMIS MACROCHIRUS) © STEVE RYAN

TIGER SHARK (GALEOCERDO CUVIER) © ALBERT KOK

UNITED STATES: Over 31 million
new observation records of birds,
validated by expert reviewers.
Publisher: eBird, an online service
providing tools for amateur andprofessional birdwatchers to record
their observations, developed by theCornell Lab of Ornithology and the
National Audubon Society. Data are
published to GBIF through the Avian
Knowledge Network (AKN).

HOODED WARBLER (SETOPHAGA CITRINA) © KEN JANES

CBOL, an Associate Participant of GBIF based at theSmithsonian Institution, Washington DC, will work withresearchers in six developing countries to develop the library.
It is intended as a tool for border and custom officials to
identify products made from wild animals and plants coveredby the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

UNITED STATES: 1.2 million
specimen records from Chicago’s
Field Museum, whose fish andmammal collection dates back to
the 1890s, and which houses thethird largest collection of birds inthe country.
Publisher: Field Museum of Natural
History, Chicago

BEE ON ECHINACEA © TERESA PRENDUSI/USDA

UNITED STATES: Visualizing impact
of pollution events
Occurrence records derived through
GBIF on 124 fish species, including
all 77 species endemic to the Gulf of
Mexico, were used in an application
called SpeciesMap (http://
speciesmap.org). The tool aims tohelp assess the impact on marine
species of the Deepwater Horizon
oil spill in 2010.
For details, see Science Review, p 17.

Google award for DNA barcoding
The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) received
US$3 million from the Google Global Impact Awards tocreate a public library of DNA barcodes to help enforce
controls on the trade in endangered species.

UNITED STATES: Modelling the
distribution of malaria-carrying
mosquito
A study by researchers in Florida
and Colombia used more than 300
records showing locations of amajor malaria-carrying mosquito, toproject its spread in Mesoamerica
and the Caribbean Basin underclimate change scenarios. Data
were obtained through GBIF and a
GBIF-funded project, Mosquito Map(www.mosquitomap.org), as wellas published data from mosquito
surveys in Colombia.
For details, see Science Review, p 18.

CHICAGO FIELD MUSEUM © KEN FAGER

UNITED STATES: Workshop on
georeferencing (June)
Location: New Haven, Connecticut
Organizer: Society for the
Preservation of Natural History
Collections (SPNHC)
30 participants
Facilitators included Vertnet
and Canadensys.

ANOPHELES ALBIMANUS, A CARRIER OF MALARIA© JAMES GATHANYASSOCIATE COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
PRE-2012 PARTICIPANTS

38

39

GBIF in Oceania

NEW DATA

Regional activity profile
GBIF has two country participants in Oceania, Australia and New Zealand. The region publishedapproximately thirty million species occurrence records in 2012. The volume of data has shown an especiallysharp increase since 2011, due in large part to publication of observation data from volunteer networks.

1%

PRIMARY BIODIVERSITY RECORDS (MILLIONS)
40

78%

21%

35

ALL DATA AVAILABLE THROUGH GBIFABOUT BIODIVERSITY IN OCEANIA

30

DATA PUBLISHED BY COUNTRYPARTICIPANTS IN OCEANIADATA USE

AUSTRALIA: Predicting the
distribution of an invasive species
Australian researchers modelled thecurrent and future distribution ofAustralian windmill grass (Chloris
truncata) using data from sources
including GBIF. The plant is a native
species but is considered a weed
and is associated with spread of
disease among people, crops andlivestock.
See Science Review, p 5.

DATA PUBLISHED BY
COUNTRY PARTICIPANTS
IN OCEANIA BY KINGDOM

25

AUSTRALIA: 1.26 million records
from the Garden Bird Survey held
annually in the Australian Capital
Territory (ACT) since 1981.
Publisher: Canberra Ornithologists
Group

AUSTRALIA: Nearly 750,000 records
from the Historical Bird Atlas,which contains data from museum
collections, personal notebooks,
and published and unpublishedliterature ranging from 1629 to 1976.
Publisher: Birdlife Australia

GOLDEN WHISTLER (PACHYCEPHALA PECTORALIS)© RALPH GREEN

20

AUSTRALIAN KING PARROT (ALISTERUS SCAPULARIS)© ARTHUR CHAPMAN

15
10
5
0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

FIGURE 20. TREND IN DATA RELATING TO OCEANIA

News and events from Oceania
Repatriating data
During 2012, the Atlas of Living Australia(ALA) integrated more than a million
records of Australian biodiversity, drawn
from collections published through GBIF by
institutions in other countries.

BETH MANTLEREGIONAL NODE REPRESENTATIVE,
CSIRO ECOSYSTEM SCIENCES,
AUSTRALIA

The records now exposed in the ALA national
portal are from over 300 datasets hosted
in 11 countries. They range from Australianplant records held in the United Kingdom’s
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Hong
Kong University Herbarium; to zoological
specimens in Poland and the United States.
The integration enables users of the ALA
portal to combine the records held overseas
with Australian-hosted data, for use in online
tools to explore and analyse Australian
biodiversity.
The ALA project reflects a major objectiveof GBIF: to enable countries to better
understand and manage their own
biodiversity by enabling free access to

ANIMALIA

PLANTAEFUNGI

FIGURE 21.

data hosted elsewhere, thus unlocking
knowledge arising from centuries of
specimen collection and nature observation.

Digital catalogue of New Zealandbiodiversity
The New Zealand Organisms Register (NZOR)
was launched in August and published as achecklist through the GBIF network. NZOR
is the national digital species catalogue for
New Zealand and contains key information
on around 70,000 organisms, indigenous or
introduced to New Zealand.
NZOR is based on a federated data networkof taxonomic data providers which includes
the national plant, fungi and animalcollections, together with data from therecently-published New Zealand Inventoryof Biodiversity. The NZOR infrastructuredelivers a set of web services to facilitate
data discovery, access and integration
into end-user data management systems
supporting the New Zealand conservation,biosecurity and environmental researchsectors.

AUSTRALIAN WINDMILL GRASS (CHLORIS TRUNCATA)© IAN DODDVOTING PARTICIPANTS

AUSTRALIA: Researching potential
bio-energy sources
A team based at the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation (CSIRO) assessed theprospects for current and futuresources of bio-energy in Australia,
using GBIF to locate worldwide
records of the oilseed plant
Pongamia pinnata, a potential
source of biofuel.
See Science Review, p 22.

INDIAN BEECH (PONGAMIA PINNATA)© TATIANA GERUS

AUSTRALIA: 750,000 records froman inventory of the flora of Western
Australia.
Publisher: Western Australia
Herbarium

RED-AND-GREEN KANGAROO PAW (ANIGOZANTHOSMANGLESII) © RON AND BETHNEW ZEALAND: Checklists for thenames of fungi (17,000 species),
arthropods (23,000 species) andplants (12,000 species) occurringin New Zealand.
Publisher: Landcare ResearchBLUE MUSHROOM (ENTOLOMA HOCHSTETTERI)© IAN DODD

40

Communications

GBIF in the news
GBIF’s activities were mentioned in a wide range of
online and printed media during 2012. Some examples
are listed here:
The 2012 GBIF Science Symposium was covered
by Reuters, and the resulting article was picked up
by many publications around the world. The story,
which focussed on predictions of climate impacts
on ecosystems from models based on biodiversity
data, was carried in leading media including Scientific
American, Khaleej Times, Deutsche Welle, Sydney
Morning Herald and Globo News.

GBIF’s communication website (www.gbif.org)
As mentioned on p 10, the new unified web portal beingrolled out in 2013 will combine GBIF´s current data portal
at http://data.gbif.org and the communication website
at www.gbif.org. For 2012, the communication site
attracted the following level of traffic as measured
by Google Analytics.

Brazil’s decision to join GBIF was covered by Agência
FAPESP, a Brazilian news agency run by the leading
science funding body based in São Paulo, and by Jornalda Ciência, the daily e-news service of the Brazilian
Society for the Progress of Science. Through theseagencies, the decision was reported in leading national
outlets such as Estado de São Paulo, and Terra.com.br.
A Portuguese-language release on the announcement
issued jointly by GBIF and the Brazilian Ministry for
Science, Technology and Innovation was also widely
picked up in Brazil.
The Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference andthe potential to mobilize data from smartphones andother citizen science tools was covered in Videnskab.
dk, an independent Danish news service which
provides news on Danish and international research.
The story was also picked up Berlingske, Denmark’soldest newspaper.

169,439 TOTAL VISITS

101,403 UNIQUE
VISITORS

VISITS WENT UP BY 16.71% COMPARED TO 2011 AND UNIQUE VISITORS WENT UP
BY 22.27% COMPARED TO 2011.

AVERAGE VISIT DURATION: 2.06 MINUTESINDIAThe GBIF-ICLEI guide for biodiversity data publishingby local governments was covered in SciDev.net, a
website that provides information on science andtechnology for the developing world. The site also
authored an article on ICT serving biodiversity in Latin
America, which covered GBIF’s work in the region andincluded statements from CONABIO, Mexico and INBio,
Costa Rica.
The portal on Belgium’s flora developed by the Belgian
Biodiversity Platform was covered in De Standaard, aFlemish daily.

FRANCEUNITED STATESCOLOMBIA

BRAZILGERMANYMEXICOSPAIN
DENMARKUNITED KINGDOMTOP 10 COUNTRIES BY NUMBER OF VISITS

Source: Google Analytics

41

GBits and its Science Supplement
To complement the bimonthly GBits newsletter, theSecretariat introduced a new GBits Science Supplement in
2012, summarizing published uses of GBIF-mediated data
identified from the scientific literature in each two month
period.

GBIF is – a tool for science and society

Publish your data using guidelines and manuals available
in the GBIF Online Resource Centre at:www.gbif.org/orc

GBIF-mediated data have been used in more than 600 peer-reviewed
scientific studies, for example to:Contact your GBIF national node through the list at:
http://www.gbif.org/participation/participant-nodes/
who-we-are/countries/

Predict the consequences of climate change forbiodiversity, from single species to global impacts

million species at:
http://data.gbif.org

Participate in the GBIF community as a country, institution orindividual. For information on the benefits of participation, see:
http://www.gbif.org/participation/outreachResearch agriculture and food security, including crop wild
relatives and pest control

Keep up to date about GBIF activities and uses of biodiversity
data by downloading the bimonthly GBits Newsletter andGBits Science Supplement at:
http://www.gbif.org/communications/resources/newsletters/

Suggest priorities for conservation of threatened species
and protected areas

Learn about GBIF’s partnerships with other organizations at:
http://www.gbif.org/governance/partnerships/

Explore links between biodiversity and human health,including modelling of disease vectors

The GBIF Online Resource Centre (www.gbif.org/orc) is asearchable repository providing easy access to documents,
manuals, tools, links and other resources relevant to
GBIF Participants and their biodiversity information
communities. During 2012 the resources available throughthis platform continued to grow and by the end of the year
included 615 public resources, consisting of:		 283 documents
		 21 digital files		 119 presentations /slide decks
		 73 biodiversity informatics tools		 117 URLs
The Secretariat has also started making publications
available via Google books and iTunes to increase reach.
Eight have been published so far.

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL INSECT COLLECTION (ANIC) STAFF DOCUMENT BEETLE SPECIMENS © ANICHow?
By serving biodiversity data for the Local Ecological Footprint
Tool (LEFT), which helps select sites for development based on
ecological sensitivity.

The Global Biodiversity
Information Facility (GBIF) was
set up by governments in 2001
to encourage and facilitate free
and open access to biodiversity
data, via the Internet.
It enables anyone, anywhereto discover and use information
about all types of life on Earth,gathered over centuries andheld in many different formats.
The data mobilized by GBIF’s
network of countries, institutions
and individuals support science,
decisions and public awarenessabout biodiversity.

GBIF delivers data that underpin
research on the world’s species –generating knowledge to help
conserve and sustainably use
the biological resources on
which all of us depend.

GBIF has enabled:
Development of a tool to reduce the negative impacts of new
industrial installations.

GBIF Online Resource Centre

Free and open access tobiodiversity data

Explore and use global biodiversity data on more than one

Data discovered and accessed through GBIF are being
used in many areas of scientific research and decision
making. These uses support international policies andresponses to key targets for ending the lossof biodiversity.

Model the potential spread of known invasive alien
species, under current and future environmental conditions

Just under 2,000 subscribers receive GBits via email.

How you can get involved in GBIF:

Secretariat
Universitetsparken 15
DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø
Denmark

Tel: +45 35 32 14 70
Fax: +45 35 32 14 80
Email: info@gbif.org
www.gbif.org

GBIF is – a connected community

GBIF is – an informatics infrastructure

GBIF is – a window on biodiversity

GBIF’s Participants collaborate to share skills, experienceand technology to mobilize and use data aboutbiodiversity for the public good.

GBIF encourages adoption and use of agreed, communitybuilt data standards and informatics tools. This enables
thousands of datasets, of many different types andcoming from all over the world, to be discovered andused by anyone.

The data published through the GBIF network describe
where and when hundreds of millions of individualorganisms have been observed or collected, helping
countries to unlock knowledge about their own
biodiversity held in other parts of the world.

The informatics solutions facilitated by GBIF include:

GBIF enables universal access to data from more than 400
institutions publishing over 10,000 datasets, including:

GBIF is a network of governments and organizations, helping one
another to set up national and thematic biodiversity information
facilities.
Participants work with the Secretariat based in Copenhagen,Denmark to facilitate the flow of biodiversity data, ensure data
quality and enable data use in science and policy. Expertise andtechnology are shared through:Regional groups, strategies and plans
Training workshops and online learning resources
Mentoring partnerships and collaboration between Participants
Capacity enhancement programmes in developing countries
GBIF also collaborates with a wide range of other global and regional
initiatives promoting access to data, information and knowledge on
biodiversity.

GBIF has enabled:
Scientific justification for selecting the sites of new marine
protected areas off Madagascar.
How?
By providing access to data on 274 fish species, used byresearchers to model the most important areas to protect,based on biodiversity, fishing pressure and climate change.

Open-source software providing a simple means ofpublishing or sharing biodiversity data via the Internet
A global data portal enabling all data shared by GBIF
publishers to be discovered and accessed from a single site
National and thematic portals to meet the needs of
GBIF Participants
Web services that allow other websites and software
to access and display data published through GBIF
Tools to simplify organizing data using scientificnames and classifications

GBIF has enabled:
Prediction of how the distribution of nearly 50,000 plant andanimal species may change by 2080, based on different scenariosof climate change.
How?
By serving global biodiversity data to the Wallace Initiative,
a partnership to help inform decisions on conservation,
climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Specimens of plants, fungi and animals from herbaria, fungariaand zoological museums, dating back to the earliest days ofnatural history collections and digitized from millions ofspecimen labels
Data from continuous monitoring projects and surveys,
including some covering decades of sampling in oceans,land and fresh water
Observations of animals and plants by ‘citizen science’networks, with community-based checks on correct identification
Information about species occurrences extracted from
historic literature and online journals

GBIF has enabled:
Greater visibility and professional recognition for those who publish
datasets, addressing some of the cultural barriers to sharing data.
How?
By developing with partners a simple process for submitting ‘data
papers’ about biodiversity datasets for peer review, with examples
already published from the Antarctic, India, Belgium and Taiwan.

FOR AN OVERVIEW OF GBIF’S WORK, DOWNLOAD THE BROCHURE FROM THE ONLINERESOURCE CENTRE. (WWW.GBIF.ORG/ORC/?DOC_ID=4927) AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH, FRENCH,
JAPANESE, SPANISH AND TRADITIONAL CHINESE. REQUESTS FOR PRINT-READY FILES,OR PRINTED COPIES FOR USE IN OUTREACH, SHOULD BE MADE TO THE SECRETARIAT.

42

End notes
1. A constantly updated archive of GBIF-relevant scientific literature,tagged by theme and geographic location, is freely available fromthe GBIF Public Library in the Mendeley research management
platform at http://www.mendeley.com/groups/1068301/gbifpublic-library/.
2. www.mappinglife.org
3. See also Jetz, W., McPherson, J.M. & Guralnick, R.P., 2012.
Integrating biodiversity distribution knowledge: toward a global
map of life. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 27(3), pp.151–9.
Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22019413.

24. Van Nieukerken E.J., Laštůvka A., Laštůvka Z. (2010). Western
Palaearctic Ectoedemia (Zimmermannia) Hering and Ectoedemia
Busck s. str. (Lepidoptera: Nepticulidae): five new species andnew data on distribution, hostplants and recognition. http://www.
pensoft.net/journal_home_page.php?journal_id=1&page=article&
type=show&article_id=282&abstract=1. The dataset is accessible
at http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/13716/.
25. Balslev, H. et al., 2012. Subandean and adjacent lowland palm
communities in Bolivia. Ecología en Bolivia, 47(1), pp.7–36.
Available at: http://www.scielo.org.bo/scielo.php?pid=S160525282012000100002&script=sci_arttext. The dataset is accessible
at http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/14087/.

4. www.iucnredlist.org
5. www.i-marine.eu
6. www.d4science.org
7. http://easin.jrc.ec.europa.eu
8. www.boldsystems.org
9. www.anymals.org
10. http://www.canadensys.net/publication/data-publication-guide

26. Cardiel, J.M. & Muñoz, P., 2012. Synopsis of Acalypha(Euphorbiaceae) of continental Ecuador. PhytoKeys, 17, pp.1–17.
Available at: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/phytokeys/
article/3190/abstract/synopsis-of-acalypha-euphorbiaceae-ofcontinental-ecuador. The dataset is accessible at http://data.gbif.
org/datasets/resource/12046.
27. GBIF (2012). GBIF-ICLEI Best practice guide for publishingbiodiversity data by local governments. Accessible at
http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=4661.

11. http://code.google.com/p/gbif-dataportal/

28. Welter-Schultes, F.W. (2012). Guidelines for the capture andmanagement of digital zoological names information, accessible at
http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=2784.

12. The detailed outcome of the Oxford genomic workshop is describedat http://standardsingenomics.org/index.php/sigen/article/view/sigs.3166513.

29. Nozères, C. et al. (2012). Best practice guidelines in thedevelopment and maintenance of regional marine species
checklists, accessible at http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=4712.

13. http://terms.gbif.org/wiki

30. Hamer, M., Victor, J., Smith, G.F. (2012). Best practice guide forcompiling, maintaining and disseminating national species
checklists, accessible at http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=4752.

14. http://community.gbif.org/pg/groups/21382/
15. http://vbrant.eu/

31. http://www.gbif.org/communications/news-and-events/gbifsymposia-and-workshops/2012-science-symposium/#c2415

16. http://www.humboldt.org.co/ingles/en-biota.htm
17. Danis, B., Jangoux, M. & Wilmes, J., 2012. Antarctic Starfish(Echinodermata, Asteroidea) from the ANDEEP3 expedition.
ZooKeys, 185, p.73-78. Available at: http://www.pensoft.net/
journals/zookeys/article/3078/abstract/. Dataset accessible at
http://data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/7928/.
18. Landuyt, W.V., Vanhecke, L. & Brosens, D., 2012. Florabank1: a gridbased database on vascular plant distribution in the northern partof Belgium (Flanders and the Brussels Capital region). PhytoKeys,
12, p.59-67. Available at: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/
phytokeys/article/2849/abstract/. Dataset accessible at http://
data.gbif.org/datasets/resource/14149/.
19. Pierrat, B., Saucède, T., Festeau. A et al., 2012. Antarctic, SubAntarctic and cold temperate echinoid database. ZooKeys 204(2012): 47-52. Available at: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/
zookeys/article/3134/abstract/antarctic-sub-antarctic-and-coldtemperate-echinoid-database.
20. Shao, K.T., Lin, J., Wu, C.H., Yeh, H.M. & Cheng. T.Y., 2012. A
dataset from bottom trawl survey around Taiwan. ZooKeys,
198, p.103–109. Available at: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/
zookeys/article/3032/a-dataset-from-bottom-trawl-survey-aroundtaiwan. Dataset accessible at http://data.gbif.org/datasets/
resource/14682/.
21. Costello, M.J. et al. (2012). Quality assurance and intellectual
property rights in advancing biodiversity data publication.
Accessible at http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=5016.
22. Miller J.A. et al. (2012). The velvet spiders: an atlas of theEresidae (Arachnida, Araneae). ZooKeys 195: 1–144. doi: 10.3897/
zookeys.195.2342. The dataset is accessible at http://data.gbif.
org/datasets/resource/14165/.
23. Valim M.P., Weckstein J.D. (2011). Two new species of Brueelia
Kéler, 1936 (Ischnocera, Philopteridae) parasitic on Neotropical
trogons (Aves, Trogoniformes). ZooKeys 128: 1–13. doi: 10.3897/
zookeys.128.1583. The dataset is accessible at http://data.gbif.
org/datasets/resource/13715/.

32. The Ebbe Nielsen Prize, named in memory of the Danish-Australianscientist whose work helped to inspire GBIF and who diedshortly before its establishment in 2001, is awarded annually
to researchers in early stages of their career, who combine
biosystematics and biodiversity informatics research in novel ways.
33. http://www.gbif.org/communications/news-and-events/gbifsymposia-and-workshops/2012-science-symposium/#c2415.
34. Ríos-Muñoz, C.A. & Navarro-Sigüenza, A.G., 2012. Patternsof species richness and biogeographic regionalization of theavifaunas of the seasonally dry tropical forest in Mesoamerica.
Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment, (November 2012),
pp.1–12. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108
0/01650521.2012.734175.
35. Ryan, C. et al. (2012), Accounting for the effects of lipids in stable
isotope (δ13C and δ15N values) analysis of skin and blubber ofbalaenopterid whales. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom., 26: 2745–
2754. doi: 10.1002/rcm.6394.
36. http://www.ipbes.net
37. Other partners are: CABI Invasive Species Compendium, IUCN
Species Survival Commission, Natural History Museum,London, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, Young
Naturalist Network (India), Fishbase, the Horus Insituteand Anatrack Ltd.
38. Details of the conference, including presentations and backgrounddocuments, can be found at www.gbic2012.org.
39. http://creative-b.eu/
40. http://www.avjcf.org/
41. http://www.jrsbdf.org
42. http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=3603&l=en43

Appendix 1 – Data records published by node

Node
Voting Participants
Argentina*
Australia
Belgium
Benin
Colombia
Costa Rica
Denmark
Estonia
FinlandFranceGermany
Ghana
Iceland
IrelandJapan
Korea, Republic ofMadagascar
Mauritania
MexicoNetherlands
New Zealand
NorwayPeru*
Portugal
Slovakia*
Slovenia*
South Africa
Spain
SwedenTanzania
UK		
USA*

Total

With coordinates

Publishers

Datasets

707,255
28,048,819
5,253,503
7,415
763,098
3,173,375
8,188,662
432,614
14,617,853
16,193,312
10,865,611
85,185458,348
2,271,604
3,310,440
1,677,288
17,761178
2,740,939
13,900,476
1,551,624
16,534,808
65,87987,789109,588266,2038,965,970
7,129,772
31,173,767
10,034
41,329,997
134,775,895

371,843
27,460,461
4,735,300
7,088
473,566
3,114,512
7,999,655
226,665
14,341,992
8,488,557
7,874,046
85,090438,174
2,271,581
433,545
344,8535,833
02,397,803
12,753,104
959,166
16,463,335
0
5,162
1,604
61,4408,059,848
5,152,277
28,575,422
9,459
40,255,201
117,052,683

11
29
6
1
10
3
20
4
11
35
20
1
1
1
3
21
3
1
4
12
1
4
4
5
1
3
2
6
5
2
11
100

57
107
52
1
29
8
59
7
61
98
8644
1
4
95
215
136
3
1
390
55
6
78
6
7
1
5
22
166
47
16
484
284

Associate Country Participants				Andorra*81,81678,008
1
Austria
3,053,319
2,784,029
13
Bulgaria*
44
44
1
Cameroon*
17,014
9,912
3
Canada2,474,324
1,959,187
17
Guinea
493
468
1
India
7,376
5,354
1
Luxembourg*
918,732
888,613
1
Nicaragua*00
1
Pakistan
853
176
1
Poland
1,612,221
1,305,290
28
Switzerland*
1,512,101
1,276,763
11
Togo
7,983
7,983
1
				
Other Associate Participants				
BioNET-ASEANET*
13,0294,775
1
BioNET-EASIANET*
1,901
1,899
2
Bioversity International
1,909,808
629,001
2
CABI Bioscience*
231,37201Chinese Taipei
1,180,417
860,6965
Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF)
107,18601Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network*
222,678
217,846
1
International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology
3,939
3,909
1
NatureServe
759,876
01
Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NORDGEN)
37,6416,093
1
Ocean Biogeographic Information System*
12,947,168
12,484,600
6Pacific Biodiversity Information Forum
2,358
2,274
1
Scientific Committee on Antartic Research (SCAR)
287,484
287,3822Society for the Management of Electronic Biodiversity Data
4,702
4,534
1
World Federation for Culture Collections
48,9110
1				* Participants that had yet to sign the memorandum of understanding by end of 2012.

7
15
4
5
99
1
4
1
0
3
98
16
1

1
1
4
3
30
1
8
3
1
1
186
2
76
1
19

44

Appendix 2 – New publishers in 2012

Publisher						

GBIF Participant Datasets
Node		

Number of occurrence
records publishedAcadia University		

Canada2Agoralogie		France1114

AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH		

Austria1

21,667

Scientific Committee on Antartic Research (SCAR)		

Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility (ANTABIF)

63,5282

7,025

Arboretum, University of Copenhagen		

Denmark

1

24,798Asociación de Becarios del Casanare - ABC		Colombia

2

3,535

Asociación Selva		

Colombia

1

6,757

Atlas survey of the Butterflies of Denmark		Denmark

1

199,307

Australian Institute of Marine Science		Australia

1

6,185

Australian Museum		Australia

1

967,447

Biodiversitäts-Monitoring Schweiz - BDMCH		

Switzerland

1

26,721

Denmark

8

265,581

BRC Forage and turf, INRA Lusignan		France1537

Canberra Ornithologists Group		

Australia

1

1,324,154

Botanical Garden & Museum, Natural History Museum of Denmark

Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen

Denmark

1

25,333Centre Suisse de Cartographie de la Faune – CSCF		

Switzerland

3

1,029,587

Chevron Australia		

Australia

1

2,029

Citizen Science - ALA Website		Australia

1

6,025

Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève - G		

Switzerland

1

11,363

Copenhagen Bird Ringing Centre, Zoological Museum, Natural History Museum of Denmark

Denmark

1

480,819

Corantioquia		

Colombia

1

55,108Danish Centre for Environment and Energy, Aarhus University

Denmark

1

45,872Danish Mycological Society		Denmark

1

81,091Danish Nature Agency		Denmark

1

1,855,327

Danish Ornithological Society		Denmark

2

4,080,232

Danske-Dyr, Condidact		Denmark

3

7,545

Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen		

Denmark

4

3,158

Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University		

Denmark

1

543,000

Department of Environment and Conservation, Western Australia

Australia2

33,503

Department of Veterinary Disease Biology, University of Copenhagen

Denmark

1

3,974

Digitarium		Finland1

1,193

Dutch Foundation for Applied Water Research		

Netherlands

1

2,942,518

Dutch Mammal Society		

Netherlands

2

7,745

Estonian Environment Information Centre		

Estonia1

166,593

European Forest Institute		

Finland1

6,628

European Molecular Biology Laboratory Australia		

Australia

1

118,890

Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia		

Colombia

3

12,828Field Study Group of the Dutch Mammal Society		

Netherlands

9

7,825

Forest & Landscape, University of Copenhagen		

Denmark

1

3,491

Fundación Alma		Colombia

1

61

Fundación Pro-Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta		Colombia

1

205

Ghana Biodiversity Information Facility (GhaBIF)		

Ghana

1

85,277

Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment - GMBA		

Switzerland

1

163,006

Gothenburg Natural History Museum (GNM)		

Sweden2

102,526

HabitatVision		

Denmark

2

22,990

Humboldt State University		USA

3

13,506

iNaturalist.org		

USA

1

30,158Argentina

1

28,145

Canada1

24,583

Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria - Instituto de Recursos Biológicos
Jardin Botanique de Montréal		
Kangawalla Pastoral Co Pty Ltd		

Australia

1

1,419

Lepidopterological Society, Denmark		Denmark

2

355,280

Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva		

Argentina

10

7,498

45

Appendix 2 – continued

Publisher						

GBIF Participant Datasets
Node		

Number of occurrence
records published

Mountain Invasion Research Network - MIREN_ETH		

Switzerland

1

Musee Vert, Museum d’Histoire Naturelle du Mans		

France

1

3,756
1,594

Museum Henri-Lecoq de Clermont-Ferrand		

France1

4,553Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory		

Australia

149,514

Muséum d’histoire naturelle de la Ville de Genève – MHNG		

Switzerland

3

46,533

Museum George Sand et de la Vallee Noire		France1

2,522Museum Victoria		

Australia

1519,291

MycoKey, Denmark		Denmark

1

3,703

Natural History Museum Maastricht		

Netherlands

1

22,241Natural History Museum Rotterdam		Netherlands

1

31,251Naturalis Biodiversity Center		Netherlands

149

Naturhistorisches Museum Basel – NMB		Switzerland

1

2,628

Naturhistorisches Museum Bern – NMBE		

Switzerland

1

365

Nijmegen Natural History Museum		Netherlands

1

4,193

Office of Environment and Heritage, Department of Premier and Cabinet
representing the State of New South Wales		Australia

1

4,288,505

Organization for Tropical Studies		

Costa Rica

4

11,147

PhytoKeys		

Bulgaria

3

75

Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery		Australia

1

41,698

Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management

Australia

1

60,492

Queensland Museum		Australia

1

24,916

Red Nacional de Observadores de Aves de Colombia		

Colombia

1

208,832

Royal Dutch Angling Association		Netherlands

1

381,873

Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz		

Germany

1

195,247

South Australian Museum		Australia

1

203,065

Swedish Museum of Natural History		

Sweden1

51,499Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy		

USA

2

4,913

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery		Australia

1

10,534

Université Laval		

Canada1

65,486

University of British Columbia		

Canada4

275,506

University of Dar es Salaam, Department of Zoology		

Tanzania

1

11,668

University of Manitoba		

Canada1

15,382

University of Puerto Rico - Invertebrate Collection		

USA

1

3,084

University of Toronto Mississauga		Canada1

10,928Western Australian Museum		Australia

1

485,140

Zoological Museum, Natural History Museum of Denmark		Denmark

11

141,597

46

Appendix 3 – Publications in 2012

Best practice guide for compiling, maintaining, disseminating national species checklists
Best practice guidelines in the development and maintenance of regional marine species checklists
Discussion paper: Quality assurance and Intellectual Property Rights in advancing biodiversity data publication
GBIF-ICLEI best practice guide for biodiversity data publishing by local governments: concise summary
GBIF-ICLEI best practice guide for biodiversity data publishing by local governments
Guidelines for the capture and management of digital zoological names information
Recommended practices for citation of data published through the GBIF network
NOTE: All documents are available via the GBIF online resource centre (www.gbif.org/orc)

Appendix 4 – Checklists published and indexed in 2012
3i - Cicadellinae Database
3i - Deltocephalinae Database
Amphibia-Malaysia
Australian Coral Ecoregions
Checklist of vascular plants of the Ñeembucú Department, Paraguay
Dyntaxa – a Swedish taxonomic database
Encyclopedia of Life
Euro+Med Plantbase
Freshwater Invasive Species in Europe
International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) Master Species List
Seed plants of the Kangchenjunga Corridor, Nepal
Seed plants of the Mahananda Neora Valley Corridor, India
Malaysian Mangrove
Malaysian Moss
Seed plants of the Neora Valley Toorsa Corridor, India
New Zealand Arthropod Names Database
New Zealand Fungi Names Database
New Zealand Inventory of Biodiversity
New Zealand Organisms Register
New Zealand Plant Names Database
Prelude Medicinal Plants Database
Reptilia.my
Seed plants of the Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary, India
Seed Plants of Kangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve, India
Seed Plants of Kangchenjunga Conservation Area, Nepal
Seed Plants of Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, India
Seed Plants of Neora Valley National Park, India
Seed Plants of Senchal Wildlife Sanctuary, India
Seed Plants of Singhalila National Park, India
Seed Plants of Toorsa Strict Nature Reserve, Bhutan
Senchal Mahananda Corridor
Singhalila Senchal Corridor
The European Nature Information System (EUNIS)
Toorsa Jigme Dorji Corridor, Bhutan
World Wildlife Fund Species Directory
Zanzibar Fruit Plant Species Checklist

47

Appendix 5 – GBIF Participants – 2012

Voting Participant

Member as of

Other Associate Participants

Argentina*
Australia
Belgium
Benin
Burkina Faso
Chile*
Colombia
Costa Rica
Denmark
Equatorial Guinea*
Estonia
FinlandFranceGermany
Ghana
Iceland
IrelandJapan
Kenya
Korea, Republic ofMadagascar
Mauritania
MexicoNetherlands
New Zealand
NorwayPeru*
Portugal
Slovakia*
Slovenia*
South Africa
Spain
SwedenTanzania
UgandaUnited Kingdom
United States*
Uruguay*

March 2002
February 2001
February 2001
December 2004
January 2007
December 2009
September 2003
May 2001
January 2001
March 2005
September 2003
April 2001
April 2001
February 2001
March 2001
June 2001
December 2007
February 2001
July 2008
May 2001
January 2003
August 2009
March 2001
February 2001
February 2001
February 2004
September 2002
June 2001
August 2001
February 2001
April 2003
February 2001
February 2001
September 2002
October 2009
August 2001
January 2001
January 2009

Associate Country Participant

Member as ofAndorra*Austria
BrazilBulgaria*
Cameroon*
CanadaCentral African Republic
Congo, Republic of
Cuba*
GuineaIndia
Indonesia*
Luxembourg*
Morocco*Nicaragua*
Pakistan
Philippines
PolandSwitzerland*
Togo

September 2010
September 2001
October 2012
August 2001
March 2005
March 2001
March 2011
May 2011
August 2008
March 2005
July 2003
October 2004
April 2008
January 2003
June 2001
August 2001
March 2005
March 2001
February 2001
October 2009

Albertine Rift Conservation Society
ACB
ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity
ARCOS
BioNet-AndinoNet		
BioNET-ASEANET*		
BioNet-EASIANET*		BioNET-INTERNATIONAL		
BioNet-SAFRINET*		
Bioversity International		
Botanic Gardens Conservation International
BGCICABI Bioscience*		
Chinese Taipei		Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo*
CYTED
Consortium for the Barcode of Life*
CBOL
Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities
CETAF
Discover Life		
DIVERSITAS		
Encyclopedia of Life
EOL
Endangered Wildlife Trust
EWT
ETI Bioinformatics		
European Environment Agency
EEA
Finding Species*		
Freshwater Biological Association – 		FreshwaterLife*ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
ICLEI
Integrated Taxonomic Information System
ITIS
Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network* IABINInternational Barcode of Life ProjectiBOL
International Centre for Insect Physiology
ICIPE
and Ecology
International Centre for Integrated Mountain
ICIMOD
Development
International Commission on Zoological
ICZN
Nomenclature*
International Long Term Ecological Research
ILTER
International Species Information System*
ISIS
Major Systematic Entomology Facilities*
MSEF
NatureServe		Natural Science Collections Alliance
NSCA
Nordic Genetic Resource Center
NordGen
Ocean Biogeographic Information System*
OBIS
Pacific Biodiversity Information Forum
PBIF
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
SCAR
Secrétariat Intérimaire du Volet Environnement
SINEPADdu NEPAD*
Society for the Management of Electronic
SMEBD
Biodiversity Data
Society for the Preservation of Natural
SPNHC
History Collections
Species 2000		
Taxonomic Databases Working Group
TDWG
United Nations Environment Programme –UNEP-WCMCWorld Conservation Monitoring Centre
Wildscreen		
World Federation for Culture Collections
WFCC

Acronym

Member as ofAugust 2009
January 2010
October 2007
October 2002
October 2002
May 2001
July 2003
January 2007
August 2004
September 2001
March 2001
April 2006
March 2005
June 2007
February 2008
May 2007
December 2007
July 2008
March 2001
September 2010
December 2003
August 2003
October 2010
March 2001
May 2001
April 2011
March 2004
September 2009
June 2005
July 2008
May 2006
February 2006
June 2001
December 2004
March 2004
June 2001
August 2004
February 2008
July 2009
March 2009
January 2007
March 2001
March 2002
May 2001
January 2003
October 2002

* Participants that had yet to sign the memorandum of understanding by end of 2012.

48

Appendix 6 – GBIF Governing Board and Standing Committees 2012

Elections for some of the committee positions were held at the 19th Governing Board meeting in September
2012. New officers elected at that time will be presented in the 2013 Annual Report.
Node Managers Committee

Executive Committee
Chair
1st Vice Chair
2nd Vice Chair
3rd Vice Chair

Joanne Daly
Jorge Soberon
Motomi Ito
Claude-Anne Gauthier

Chair
Vice Chairs		Members

Committee Chairs
Science
Budget
Nodes
Rules

Leonard Krishtalka
Per Backe Hansen
Francisco Pando
Christoph Häuser

Nodes Steering Group

Ex-officio
Executive Secretary

Donald Hobern

Standing Committees
Science Committee
Chair
Vice Chairs				Members		

Leonard Krishtalka
Mark Graham
Arturo Ariño
Jean Cossi Ganglo
Roderic Page
Elizabeth Arnaud

Ex-officio
Chair Governing Board
1st Vice Chair Governing Board
2nd Vice Chair Governing Board
3rd Vice Chair Governing Board
Nodes Committee Chair
Executive Secretary

Joanne Daly
Jorge Soberon
Motomi Ito
Claude-Anne GauthierFrancisco Pando
Donald Hobern

Budget Committee
Chair
Vice Chairs		Members						

Per Backe Hansen
Edgardo Romero
Eli van der Heide
Christoph Häuser
Xavier Le Roux
Keiichi Matsuura
Ben Wheeler

Ex-officio
GB Chair
Executive Secretary

Joanne Daly
Donald Hobern

Chair
Vice Chairs		
Regional Node Representatives
		
		
		
		
		

Francisco Pando
Stephen Wilkinson
Francis Oguya
All Node Managers

Francisco Pando
Stephen Wilkinson
Francis Oguya
Robert Hanner
Cees Hof
Beth Mantle
Fatima Parker-AllieÁngela Suárez-Mayorga
Sheila G. Vergara

Rules Committee
Chair
Vice Chair

Christoph Häuser
Keiichi Matsuura

Ex-officio
Chair Governing Board
Executive Secretary

Joanne Daly
Donald Hobern

49

Appendix 7 – GBIF Accreditations
and representations

Appendix 8 – GBIF Task
Groups 2012

GBIF accreditations

Task Group on Financial Sustainability

1. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

Chair                     Members                                                                                                                                       Secretariat         2. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora (CITES)
3. Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Global Earth Observation
System of Systems (GEOSS)
4. Intergovernmental Science Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services (IPBES)
5. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
6. Trondheim Environmental Conferences
7. United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC)
8. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council(Major Groups and Stakeholders/Global Ministerial Environment Forum)
9. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

GBIF representations
1. Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP)
2. Conservation Commons Steering Committee (CMS)
3. Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) Council
4. Eye on Earth – Biodiversity Special Initiative
5. Global Invasive Alien Species Information Partnership (GIASIP)
6. Global Partnership for Plant Conservation (GPPC)
7. Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network(GEO-BON) Steering Committee
8. GEO BON Implementation Plan: Working Group on Data Integration
and Interoperability
9. LifeWatch Policy & Science Board

Lars Nilsson
Michel Guiraud
Christoph Häuser
Fumiko Nakao
Joann P. Roskoski
Mark Stevenson
Hugo von Linstow

50

Appendix 9 – Financial information

Preliminary financial statement 2012 in EUR

Contributing agencies for 2012

GBIF CORE FUNDS		

Voting Participants

Financial Contributors

		Argentina
Australia
Benin
Burkina Faso		
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Denmark
Estonia
FinlandFranceGermany		
Ghana
Iceland
IrelandJapan
Madagascar
Mauritania
MexicoNetherlands
New Zealand
NorwayPortugal
Republic of Korea
Slovak Republic
Slovenia
South Africa
SwedenTanzania
Uganda*United Kingdom
		
		
		
		
USA*
		
		
		

CONICET - Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales		
CSIRO Entomology					Laboratoire des Sciences Forestières			Conseil National pour la Gestion de l’Environnement(SP/CONAGESE)					Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente (CONAMA)		
Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biólogicos		Asociación Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio)		
Danish Natural Research Council				
Ministry of Environment				Finnish Museum of Natural History			
Direction Générale pour la Recherche et l’Innovation (DGRI)
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
German Aerospace Center, BMBF				
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)		
Ministry for the Environment				National Parks & Wildlife Service				Japan Science and Technology Agency			
Centre National de Recherches sur l’Environnement (CNRE)
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Nouakchott			Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT)		
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science			
Ministry of Research, Science and Technology			
The Research Council of Norway				Foundation for Science and Technology			
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology		
Ministry of the Environment				Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology 		Department of Science and Technology			Swedish Research Council				
Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH)
Uganda National Council for Science and Technology		
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)		
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew				
Natural History Museum, London				
Joint Nature Conservation Committee			
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
U.S. Department of State
U.S. Department of Agriculture

Income statement

EUROS

Income2,252,712

Work Programme 2012 – Informatics-1,508,188

Work Programme 2012 – Participation-826,327

Governance – Committee costs-128,901

Staff expenditure – Management-674,942

Running expenditure – Management-213,095

Secretariat facilities – Management-82,308			
Total expenditure-3,433,761

Changes in foreign exchanges rates-379

Interest

6,363

			
End of the year result

5,984-1,175,065

BALANCE SHEET
AssetsOther receivables and VAT

46,618Cash and cash at bank

1,325,787

Total assets

1,372,405

Net capital and liabilities		Net capital-4,559Provisions

235,034

Supplementary funds

347,504

AuditorPrepayments 2013
Other payables
Total equity and liabilities

6,174
641,799
146,453
1,372,405

GBIF supplementary fund
Balance on 1 January
Exchange rate change 1 January
Income 2012

490,227-1,724
396,505

Interest income transferred tosupplementary funds

19,991

Expenditure-557,495

			

347,504* Received in 2013

Externally Received Grants 2012
For supplementary Funds

DKK

EUR

University of Copenhagen (IT equipment)

170,000

22,787

University of Copenhagen (salary subsidy)

132,000

17,693

i4Life183,762

24,632

ViBRANT

270,529

36,262OpenUp!

145,589

19,515

GBIO, conference

912,708

122,340

1,814,588

243,229

Total external funding

51

Appendix 10 – GBIF Secretariat staff

Executive Secretary/Director

Donald Hobern (from 30 January)

Deputy Director for Management and International Relations

Hugo von Linstow

Office Manager & PA to the Director

Susanne Lønstrup Sheldon

ICT Support Manager

Anne Mette Nielsen

Financial Officer

Bo Thorsteinsson

Information Systems Architect

Tim Robertson

Webmaster and Network Administrator

Ciprian Vizitiu

System Administrator

Andrei Cenja

Systems Analyst

Andrea Hahn

Data Administrator

Jan Krzysztof Legind

Programmer

José Miguel Cuadra Morales

Programmer

Kyle Braak

Developer

Federico Mendez Hernandez

Developer

Lars Francke

Developer

Oliver Meyn

Knowledge Systems Engineer

Dag Terje Filip Endresen (Until 30 September)

Senior Programme Officer for Inventory, Discovery and Access (IDA)

Éamonn Ó Tuama

Senior Programme Officer for Digitisation and Mobilisation of Primary

Vishwas Chavan

Biodiversity Data (DIGIT)
Senior Programme Officer for the Electronic Catalogue of Names

David Remsen (until 2 June)of Known Organisms (ECAT)
Technical Assistant (ECAT)

Nikolas Ioannou (until 31 December)

Senior Programme Officer for Participation

Olaf Bánki

Nodes Capacity Officer

Mélianie Raymond (back from maternity leave		

1 February)		

Katja Wolfhechel Christensen (until 31 July)

Informatics Liaison

Burke Chih-Jen Ko

Senior Progamme Officer for Training

Alberto González-Talaván

Senior Programme Officer for Engagement

Tim Hirsch

Communications Officer

Sampreethi Aipanjiguly

Senior Programme Officer for Science and Scientific Liaison

Samy Gaiji

Secretariat
Universitetsparken 15
DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø
Denmark
Tel: +45 35 32 14 70
Fax: +45 35 32 14 80
Email: info@gbif.org
www.gbif.org

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