GBIF NEWSLETTER, NO. 23 – JULY 2011

VISION OF GBIF: A world in which biodiversity information is freely and universally available forscience, society, and a sustainable future.
MISSION OF GBIF: To be the foremost global resource for biodiversity information, and engendersmart solutions for environmental and human well-being.

NEWS
Winner of 2011 Ebbe Nielsen prize announced
Prof Jens-Christian Svenning of the Department of Biological Sciences at Aarhus University,Denmark, is the winner of the Ebbe Nielsen prize this year. The award of €30,000 recognises
innovations in biodiversity informatics. Prof Svenning intends to use the award towards gaining
a better understanding of what determines species diversity. [read more ...]
Young scientists showcase GBIF data use
An ornithologist from Mexico and a marine biologist from Ireland are this year’s winners of theGBIF Young Researchers Award. César Antonio Ríos-Muñoz and Conor Ryan, both Ph.D. students,
will each receive €4000 to help fund research proposals making innovative use of data madeavailable through the GBIF network. [read more ...]New tool for biodiversity data publishing
A new tool to convert descriptions of biodiversity data into scientific journal articles is nowavailable. The tool, developed by GBIF in partnership with academic publishers Pensoft, creates
so-called ‘Data Papers’ from descriptions of datasets (metadata). The aim is to give due
recognition to efforts by scientists and institutions making data accessible to the wider
scientific community. [read more ...]
Trapping data to aid conservation
A pilot project to help digitise data captured by the network of camera traps in India has beenlaunched in a collaboration between Norwegian and Indian scientific institutions. The
Norwegian government is providing 1.2 million Norwegian Kroner (US$ 217,000) towards thetwo-year project. [read more ...]AROUND THE NETWORKThe Republic of Congo is now GBIF Associate Participant
The most recent addition to the GBIF network is the Republic of Congo, bringing the total
number of participants to 104. Of these, 57 are country members and 47 are internationalorganisations and economies. [full list of participants... ]Training to help digitise Indian biodiversity data
A workshop on digitising and mobilising natural history collections was organised in Kolkata,
India in June. The event was part of The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA)’s mentoring efforts tohelp the Wildlife Institute of India build a GBIF node. [read a personal account of the event byALA’s John Tann...]Layout & design © GBIF

No. 23, July 2011

page 2GBits
MEETINGS AND EVENTS

Registration opens for Governing Board meeting
Registration is now open for the meetings of the 18th GBIF Governing Board (GB18) andassociated committees, a three-day training event for GBIF nodes and the annual GBIF Science
Symposium. The meetings will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 28 September to 7October and mark 10 years of GBIF’s existence. The Science Symposium is open to the publicand press, subject to prior registration. [read more...]DATA PUBLISHING NEWSAs a new feature for GBits, we are highlighting some of the new data publishers and datasetsthat have been added to the GBIF network since the last edition in May.
New publishers-Cameroon’s Institut de Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (IRAD) published 1,249
records of 60 species from the insect collection of the International Institute of TropicalAgriculture, Cameroon Station.
Birds Australia , through the Atlas of Living Australia submitted 7.4 million observation records
from its Birdata database, still being processed for inclusion in the GBIF data portal.
Peru’s Universidad Nacional de San Agustín published more than 11,000 plant records from theHerbarium Areqvipense, also still in the processing stage.

Other datasets---

Mexico’s Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO) added
267 new databases to the GBIF portal, comprising a total of 1.1 million records, nearly doubling
the amount of data so far published by CONABIO.
The UK’s National Biodiversity Network published 32 datasets comprising more than 1.5 million
records from a range of regional surveys and collections.
Ireland’s National Biodiversity Data Centre submitted a further 30 datasets ranging from themosquitos, fleas and lice of Ireland to the Road Kill Survey, with a total of more than half amillion records.
The Danish Biodiversity Information Facility (DanBIF) published nearly 80,000 records of algae
specimens, comprising 850 species, from Denmark, Iceland, the Faeroes and Greenland, datingback to 1841, held in the Phycology Herbarium of Copenhagen’s Botanical Museum.

SECRETARIAT NEWSGBIF on social media
GBIF now has a Facebook page — a bit friendless at the moment, so please ‘like’ us. We will use
it to highlight news from around the GBIF community, plus developments and discussions in theworld of biodiversity data and informatics. You can also follow us on Twitter @gbif, and don't
forget the GBIF community site http://community.gbif.org/.
New Secretariat staff
Sampreethi Aipanjiguly has started in her position as Communications Officer, and Olaf Bánki
will be starting as Senior Programme Officer for Participation from 1 August. [read more ...]

GBIF SecretariatUniversitetsparken 15
DK-2100 Copenhagen ØDenmark

Tel: +45 35 32 14 70
Fax: +45 35 32 14 80
E-mail: info@gbif.org
URL: http://www.gbif.org/GBits archive: http://www.gbif.org/communications/resources/newsletters/
Layout & design © GBIF

No. 23, July 2011