GBitsa publication of

no. 44
Jul 2015

Pre-announcement: BID call for
proposals from Africa

NEWS UPDATES
Pre-announcement: BID call for
proposals from Africa
Surveys seek to understand biodiversity
data needs and resources in Africa
Six finalists selected for GBIF Ebbe
Nielsen Challenge
GBIF awards six capacity enhancement
grants for 2015
Winners of the GBIF Young ResearchersAward for 2015 announced
GBIF Annual Report for 2014 published.
Task groups to help make data more ‘fit
for use’ in key research areas .
Data quality guide now in Portuguese

GBIF will issue its first call for proposals from subSaharan Africa for the Biodiversity Information for
Development (BID) programme in September 2015, witha potential total of €900,000 in funding assigned to thiscall.
Three broad categories of grants are anticipated.
• National biodiversity data mobilization grants
to establish or strengthen national biodiversity
information facilities

GBIF DATA IN USE................4
NEW DATA............................5
GBIF COMMUNITY ..............8
GBIF France launches new national data
portal for biodiversity.
Finland launches public test version of
new national data portal

AROUND THE NETWORK......8
TRAINING............................9
EVENTS...............................10• Regional biodiversity data mobilization grants todevelop international collaborations to increase
biodiversity data relevant for biodiversity
conservation priorities• Small biodiversity data mobilization grants of up to€5,000, which seek to mobilize biodiversity data
through the preparation of data papers
read the pre-announcement
In English
In French
In Portuguese

To subscribe to the GBits newsletter, visit
www.gbif.org/newsroom/summary#signup
or email comms@gbif.org

GBitsSurveys seek to understandbiodiversity data needs and resourcesin Africa
GBIF is also seeking input for the BID programme
via surveys for data holders and decision makers.

The survey for data holders, available in English,
French and Portuguese, seeks opinions fromdata holders regarding the financial or technicalchallenges they face in sharing data and its use inresearch and policy.
The survey for decision makers, also available in
English, French and Portuguese, seeks opinions
about how well information needs are currently
served.
read moreNews update on gbif.org
BID was launched at a four-day conference - Africa
Rising: Mobilising Biodiversity Data for Sustainable
Development, led by the South African National
Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). The programme aims
to increase the availability and use of biodiversity
information in the ‘ACP’ nations of sub-SaharanAfrica, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
read moreNews update on Africa Rising

Six finalists selected for GBIF Ebbe
Nielsen Challenge

An expert jury has selected six highly innovative
finalists from among 23 submissions received forthe inaugural GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge, inviting
their creators to compete for €25,000 during theinnovation prize’s second and final round.
The six finalists reflect a wide range of uses ofopen-access biodiversity data from the GBIF
network. They range from browser-based insights
on dataset quality to regional bird and frog
soundscapes, and from a web application thatprovides interactive predictive modelling to social
media-powered biodiversity assessments.
The winners (in alphabetical order) are:• #myGBIF, created by Tom August (United
Kingdom)• BioGUID.org, created by Richard Pyle (UnitedStates)• ecoSpace, created by Miguel Porto (Portugal)
22• GBIF dataset metrics, created by Peter Desmet,
Bart Aelterman & Nicolas Noé (Belgium)• GBIF Soundscape, created by Ben Raymond &Peter Neish (Australia)• Wallace, created by Robert P. Anderson,
Matthew Aiello-Lammens, Bob Muscarella,
Bruno Vilela & Jamie Kass (United States,
Denmark and Spain)
read moreNews update on GBIF.org

GBIF awards six capacity enhancement
grants for 2015
GBIF has selected six projects to receive support
through its capacity enhancement programme in2015. The projects involve 16 national Participants,
three organizational Participants and other partners
to address specific capacity needs in Africa, Latin
America and Europe.
The selected projects focus on mobilization,access and use of digital biodiversity data as wellas translation of essential technical and training
documentation.
The projects to receive support this year are:
• A Latin American collaboration to establish
a national biodiversity website and data
publication workflow for Uruguay led by GBIF
Uruguay• A European project led by the Belgium
Biodiversity Platform, host to the Belgian Node,to translate the technical documentation anduser-interface required for reusing Atlas of
Living Australia’s software to develop national
biodiversity portals• An African project in which the lead agency,
Endangered Wildlife Trust, will train seven GBIF
nodes in ecological niche modelling and makethe training material available to the community• A project in Africa headed by GBIF Portugal topromote GBIF in Portuguese-speaking African
nations• A GBIF Malawi-led project to identify training
and infrastructure needs related to biodiversity
data management in the country and to achieve
stakeholder commitment in implementing GBIF
activities.

Aug 2011

no. 44 Jul 2015

• A project in which GBIF France mentors GBIF
Madagascar in strengthening their national
network and publishing new data.
read moreNews update on GBIF.org

Winners of the GBIF Young
Researchers Award for 2015
announced
Gonzalo Enrique Pinilla Buitrago, a ColombianVenezuelan Master’s degree student at the Institutode Ecología in Xalapa, Mexico, and Fatima ParkerAllie, a PhD student from South Africa, are the tworecipients of the 2015 GBIF Young Researchers Award.
distribution patterns of fauna through nichemodelling techniques, using data accessed through
GBIF and other sources. He will draw upon halfa million records related to 493 mammals andmore than 7,000 records for 112 beetle species.
The research will also use data from the Mammal
Networked Information System (MaNIS), and
CONABIO (Mexico’s National Information System
on Biodiversity, and home of the GBIF nationalnode) along with additional records from publishedliterature.
read moreNews update on GBIF.org

GBIF Annual Report for 2014 published
Fatima Parker-Allie’s work will seek to advance thefield of biodiversity informatics in South Africa inthree distinct and complementary areas:• The development of a national BSc (honours)
curriculum for biodiversity informatics• Data quality improvements that makebiodiversity data more fit for use in research
applications• Distribution models of commercially importantfish species in southern African waters under
different climate scenarios.
read moreNews update on GBIF.org
In the project outlined for the award submission,
Pinilla Buitrago proposes to examine historical

The GBIF Secretariat has published its annual reportfor 2014, describing progress made in meeting thegoals of the 2014-2016 work programme.
The publication also outlines key achievements in
the GBIF network.
download
GBIF Annual Report 2014

Task groups to help make data more
‘fit for use’ in key research areas

GBIF has assembled a pair of panels of international
experts to explore how best to improve theuse and application of GBIF-mediated data inagrobiodiversity and distribution modelling.
Each task group will assess coverage andcompleteness of data—often referred to as ‘fitness
for use’— and lend its expertise to recommend

33

GBitsapproaches that could improve research andapplications in these thematic areas. Their work
is part of a broader strategy to engage expert
communities of interest to understand how
biodiversity data are applied in particular use
cases.
read moreNews update on GBIF.org

Data quality guide now in Portuguese
Arthur Chapman’s definitive “Principles of data
quality” is now available in Portuguese thanks to
GBIF Portugal and Brazil’s national node SiBBr.

Read the new Portuguese translation in PDF
Read it at Google Books
Read the English original

GBIF DATA IN USE
The Secretariat maintains a programme to monitor
use of GBIF-mediated data in scientific literature.
The following peer-reviewed articles represent somerecent highlights.
Gwitiraa I, Murwira A, Zengeya FM, Masocha M &Mutambu S (2015). Modelled habitat suitability ofa malaria causing vector (Anopheles arabiensis)
relates well with human malaria incidences in
Zimbabwe. Applied Geography 60: 130-138.
Author countries: Zimbabwe
In hope of contributing to better, more effective
strategies for controlling of malaria, theauthors developed a habitat suitability modelfor Anopheles arabiensis, one of the disease’s
vectors, using occurrence records from GBIF.org
and other sources. The results showed a positive
if weak correlation between suitable habitat for
A. arabiensis and disease incidences recordedby Zimbabwean health facilities, suggesting
the model’s potential utility as an indicator inprioritizing disease prevention or treatment
efforts.
Brown KA, Parks KE, Bethell CA, Johnson SE& Mulligan M (2015). Predicting plant diversity
patterns in Madagascar: understanding the effects
of climate and land cover change in a biodiversity
hotspot. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0122721.
Author countries: United Kingdom, Canada
Seeking to understand the impacts of climate

4

4

ANJAJAVY DRY DECIDUOUS FOREST, NORTHWEST MADAGASCAR.
C. MICHAEL HOGAN. PUBLIC DOMAIN.

and land cover change on tropical patterns ofplant diversity, the authors use GBIF-mediatedoccurrences for 828 genera and 2186 species tomodel three scenarios and predict future changes
to biodiversity in Madagascar.
Kraemer MUG, Sinka ME, Duda KA et al. (2015). The
global distribution of the arbovirus vectors Aedes
aegypti and Ae. albopictus. eLife 4:e08347.
Author countries: United Kingdom, United States,
Brazil, Sweden, Belgium, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei
Dengue and chikungunya are a pair of mosquitoborne viral infections that have become
increasingly widespread public health threatsover the past 50 years. Here the authors update
the known and predicted distributions of Aedes
aegypti and Ae. albopictus, the two species
responsible for transmitting the viruses tohumans. By showing that both species now inhabit
all continents—and may yet have room to expand
their ranges further, particularly in the case of Ae.
albopictus—these findings provide baseline forunderstanding the geographical factors of theirspread and what health planning measures might
help control it.
Moonlight PW, Richardson JE, Tebbitt MC et al.
(2015). Continental-scale diversification patterns
in a megadiverse genus: the biogeography of
Neotropical Begonia. Journal of Biogeography 42:1137-1149.
Author countries: United Kingdom, Colombia,
United States, Singapore, China, Chinese Taipei
Why are the tropics such a hotbed of plant
diversity? What causes and mechanisms are
responsible for shaping these evolutionary
patterns? Here the authors tackle ‘one of the mostintriguing questions in modern biogeography’Aug 2011

no. 44 Jul 2015

by seeking to understand the origins and spreadof the genus Begonia. Pairing genetic analysisof the evolution of around 1,600 Andeancentered Begonia species with a reconstructionof their ancestral ranges (which relies on 22,374
GBIF-mediated records), the findings highlight
Begonia’s numerous radiation events and theimportance of chance in regional and continentalscale dispersals of species.
Mylne AQN, Pigott DM, Longbottom J et al. (2015)
Mapping the zoonotic niche of Lassa fever inAfrica. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical
Medicine & Hygiene 109(8): 483-492.
Author countries: United Kingdom, United States
Lassa fever is a difficult-to-diagnose viral illness
that claims an estimated 5,000 lives annuallyin West Africa. With previous research having
pinpointed the Natal multimammate mouse(Mastomys natalensis) as the virus’ animal host,the authors used more than 2 million GBIFmediated records for all members of the family
Muridae to model the host species’ distribution.

Silva-Rocha I, Salvi D, Sillero N, Mateo JA &Carretero MA (2015). Snakes on the Balearic
islands: an invasion tale with implications fornative biodiversity conservation. PLoS ONE 10(4):e0121026.
Author countries: Portugal, Spain
Although the long chequered history of humaninteraction with the Balearic Islands has presented
nearly innumerable opportunities for biologicalinvasion, this paper focuses on four recently
introduced snake species: the horseshoe whip
snake (Hemorrhois hippocrepis), the Montpellier
snake (Malpolon monspessulanus), the false
smooth snake (Macroprotodon mauritanicus) andthe ladder snake (Rhinechis scalaris).
The authors analysed mitochondrial DNA fromtissue samples to understand the snakes’ origins
and invasive pathways. Then, relying primarily
on GBIF-mediated data to understand the native
distribution of each species, they estimatedtheir current and future habitat suitability in thisMediterranean archipelago. These combined
molecular and ecological analyses suggest thatthe nursery trade in olive trees may be a likely andsingle source of each invasion, and that climatechange might improve conditions for these alreadywidespread alien species.

NEW DATA
Major increase in Brazilian plant and fungus
data
NATAL MULTIMAMMATE MOUSE (MASTOMYS NATALENSIS). BY BATWRANGLER VIAFLICKR. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Combining the model with known locations of
Lassa infection in humans and animals, the results
highlight an at-risk population of 37.7 million
people in 14 West African countries—including
four that have yet to report any cases—whereconditions are suitable for transmission of thefever. This concluding paper in a series that also
mapped the zoonotic niche of the Ebola, Marburg
and Crimean-Congo viruses offers a spatial guidefor future surveillance, diagnosis and treatment of
Lassa fever, potentially enabling more rapid publichealth responses in the sub-Saharan regions
susceptible to this acute viral illness.

Around 100 of Brazil’s herbaria have publisheddata through GBIF.org for the first time, tripling
the total number of records published by Brazilian
institutions to more than 4.3 million.
This surge of records results from a collaboration
between the Brazilian-based speciesLink network,
the National Institute of Science and Technology’s
Virtual Herbarium of Flora and Fungi (INCTHVFF), Brazil’s national node SiBBr, and the GBIF
Secretariat informatics team.
Read moreNews update on GBIF.org

55GBitsBELGIUM
Waterbirds of the Botanic Garden Meise
Publisher: Botanical Garden Meise
Total records: 5,666
Records of feral geese and coots recorded in the
botanical garden as part of a project to study the
habitat preferences of these birds.

.......

populations of capybaras in the municipalities
of Paz de Ariporo and Hato Corozal, plant
species in capybara habitat, and of capybara
food species.
• 12,962 records of dung beetle specimens fromthe collections of the Alexander von Humboldt
Institute. A portion of the records relates todung beetles from Colombia’s coffee-growing
areas and the rest are of species associatedwith dry forests.
• 3,535 records of insects of importance topublic health such as mosquitoes and bloodsucking assassin bugs, collected in the country
over 15 years by researchers at the publishinginstitution, the Colombian Institute of Tropical
Medicine.

BOTANIC GARDEN MEISE, BELGIUM. BY DONAR REISKOFFER, VIA FLICKR.
CC BY 3.0.

Atlas of the breeding birds in Flanders
Publisher: Research Institute for Nature and Forest(INBO)
Total records: 330,046• 6,677 observations of birds in flower farms in
the Savanna of Bogotá and eastern Antioquia.
Among the observed species are the criticallyendangered spot-flanked gallinule (Gallinula
melanops bogotensis), and the endangered
Bogota rail (Rallus semiplumbeus) and ruddy
duck (Oxyura jamaicensis andina). Published by
the Asociación Bogotana de Ornitología.

The dataset holds observations from three breeding
seasons (2000-2002) for 197 taxa, 183 species andthree subspecies of which breed in Flanders.

• 1,623 records of 11 primate species observedin the Amazon border between Colombia andPeru, between March 2005 and May 2015,
published by Fundación Entropika.

Benin

Democratic Republic of Congo

Census of plant species
Publisher: GBIF Benin
Total records: 8,061

New publisher: Université Pédagogique Nationalede Kinshasa (UPN)
Total records: 213

Three datasets with records of plants observed
near Monts-Kouffè forest reserve, central Benin,
in the Pahou forest reserve, and in the Toffo forest
reserve.

Five datasets with a total of 213 records of plants,
edible insects, livestock and fodder.

Colombia

Highlights from 31 datasets published recently:• Three datasets with a total of 6,839 records
pertaining to the characterization of wild
capybara habitat in the department of
Casanare, published by the Alexander von
Humboldt Institute. Records include informationfrom an assessment of current status of wild

6

6

FranceMosquitoes of French Guiana
Publisher: Laboratoire EDB “Evolution et Diversité
Biologique”
Total records: 1,138
Records are from an ongoing study of mosquito
distribution in the area.

Aug 2011

no. 44 Jul 2015

Germany

Palaeontological collections of the State Museum of
Natural History Stuttgart
Publisher: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde
Stuttgart
Total records: 46,025
Nine fossil datasets that included specimens
preserved in amber, 540 million-year-old
invertebrates and 66 million-year-old mammals.

Ireland

Bird Atlas 2007-2011
Publisher: National Biodiversity Data Centre
Total records: 458,185
Irish observation data from a wider survey of bird
distribution across Britain and Ireland, in summer
and winter, over the four-year period from 2007
to 2011. More than 2,000 Irish citizen scientists
participated in the survey. Findings for Ireland aresummarized in a video available on you tube.

IsraelPublisher: Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA)
Total records: 406,535
21 datasets from eight data holders including theINPA, HaMAARAG – the Israel National Program for
Ecosystem Assessment, and the collections of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Netherlands

Fish observations from historic reports
Publisher: Reptile, Amphibian and Fish
Conservation Netherlands (RAVON)
Total records: 19,700
Fish market records from between 1860 and 1907
documenting landings of important migratory
fish species such as Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser
sturio), Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and Allis shad
(Alosa alosa).

Breeding bird monitoring programme
Publisher: Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology
Total records: 94,696
Data records were gathered between 1969 and2009 by mapping bird territories in study plots.

NorwayInsect database of the Norwegian Institute for
Nature Research (NINA)
Publisher: Norwegian Institute for Nature Research
Total records: 125,572
Records pertain to insects collected in Norway.

Portugal

Flora of mainland Portugal
Publisher: Sociedade Portuguesa de Botânica
Total records: 140,687
Citizen plant observations uploaded to FloraOn and validated by experts. The Sociedade
Portuguesa de Botânica created the platform,
which is maintained by the volunteer efforts of its
associate members.

RussiaBrittle star collection of the Russian Academy of
Sciences
Publisher: Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of
Sciences, St. Petersburg
Total records: 8,401
Records represent specimens collected from 1800
onwards, with the oldest specimens collected in
Canada and Greenland.

Spain

Atlas of Iberian water beetles
Publisher: Department of Ecology and Hydrology,
University of Murcia
Total records: 62,015
The Atlas includes all available distribution data
extracted from literature—museum and private
collections, PhD theses and other unpublishedsources—up to 2013.
Ant collection of the University of Granada
Publisher: Dept. of Zoology, University of Granada
Total records: 8,196

ATLANTIC SALMON (SALMO SALAR). BY HANS-PETTER FJELD VIA
WIKIMEDIA. CC-BY-SA.

7

7

GBitsBird ring-recovery data
Publisher: Aranzadi Science Society
Total records: 304,689– single specimens which are the base for thedescription and names of species.

Bird-ringing data were gathered through the
Aranzadi Ringing Scheme active since 1950.

GBIF COMMUNITY

Sweden

GBIF France launches new national
data portal for biodiversity

Invertebrate type specimens at the Swedish
Museum of Natural History
Publisher: GBIF-Sweden
Total records: 6,948
Records are of type specimens in the museum’s
invertebrate collection, including those of soil
roundworms (nematodes), marine bristle worms(polychaetes) and echinoderms.

UgandaNational Biodiversity Data Bank observation
records
Publisher: Albertine Rift Conservation Society(ARCOS)
Total records: 57,218
Records include observations of those ofchimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), L’Hoest’s monkey(Cercopithecus lhoesti), African buffalo (Syncerus
caffer), blue duiker (Cephalophus monticola),
and the threatened bat White-winged serotine(Eptesicus tenuipinnis).

United States

Invertebrate Paleontology Collection of the Florida
Museum of Natural History
Publisher: Florida Museum of Natural History
Total records: 249,368
Molluscs from the southeastern United States are
the focus of this specimen collection.
Vascular plant collection of the New York Botanical
Garden Herbarium
Publisher: The New York Botanical Garden
Total records: 1,432,584
Specimens are from the William and Lynda Steere
Herbarium, the fourth largest in the world.
Invertebrate paleontological specimens
Publisher: Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of
Natural History
Total records: 210,019
The museum has nearly one million specimensfrom every major invertebrate fossil group. Amongthe published records are a number of holotypes
8

8

GBIF France has launched the Atlas of Living France,a new data portal providing access to more than
17 million biodiversity data records published by
French institutions.
The website, which allows users to explore
occurrence records and metadata, uses opensource code developed by GBIF’s AustralianParticipant, the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA).
The new French atlas is the second national portal
developed with the ALA’s tools, coming on theheels of GBIF Spain’s release last year.
Read the full story on GBIF.org
Access Atlas of Living France

Finland launches public test version of
new national data portal
The Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility (FinBIF)
has launched a new portal providing free accessto 35 million occurrence records of nearly 50,000
species recorded in Finland.
Released in a public test version, Laiji.fi (species.
fi) is developed by the Finnish Museum of Natural
History (LUOMUS), host of the GBIF national node.
Read the full story on GBIF.org
Access Laji.fi

AROUND THE NETWORKWorld Register of Introduced Marine
Species launched

The World Register of Introduced Marine Species(WRIMS) database, which records alien oceanic
species, has been officially launched. The databaserecords more than 1,500 introduced species, noting
their source location by country, sea area andgeographical coordinates.
WRIMS draws upon earlier work by the IUCN
Invasive Species Specialist Group to develop anannotated dataset for the World Register of Marine
Species (WoRMS).
Access WRIMS website

Aug 2011

no. 44 Jul 2015

Open access data comes to Natural
History Museum, London

The 80 million specimens in the Natural History
Museum (NHM), London, comprise one of theworld’s most important scientific collections. In
February, NHM published a dataset containing morethan 2.5 million specimen records through GBIF.org.
An article written by Kyle Copas from the GBIF
Secretariat provides an insight into the dataset andinto NHM’s large-scale digitization effort.
Read the full article on NBN.org.uk

Funding available to publish
Norwegian species occurrence data

GBIF Norway invites project proposals for the
co-funding of publication of Norwegian species
data to GBIF.org. The call is primarily addressed
to Norwegian institutes. However, international
institutions holding occurrence data from Norway
are also invited to apply.
Read application details

Pilot project explores securing
traditional knowledge via ALA

The Olkola people, researchers with Australia’s
national science agency CSIRO and the TropicalIndigenous Ethnobotany Centre (TIEC) are looking
at establishing a model for two-way informationexchange between the Atlas of Living Australia andindigenous groups. The pilot project is expected tostart mid-2015.
This is one of two Indigenous Ecological Knowledge(IEK) pilot projects that the Atlas of Living Australia
supports.

Smith of the Natural History Museum, London• The controversy within publishing data on the
open Web by Pieter Colpaert of Open Knowledge
Belgium
These and presentations on other biodiversity
informatics initiatives are available via theconference website.

Tool developed to crossmap checklists
Participants at a training hackathon in Leiden in
March developed a new tool, gn_crossmap, whichhelps compare checklists of scientific names
to names from a source of reference. Hosted by
Naturalis in March, the event was one of five GBIFfunded capacity enhancement projects for 2014.
Read about gn_crossmap on the Global
Names Architecture blog
Read description of how to use the tool
Read full report of the Leiden training
hackathon

German data portal funded with athree-year €5.8 million grant

The German Research Foundation DFG has
approved funding of €5.8 million for the threeyear next phase of the German Federation for theCuration of Biological Data (GFBio). The funds
will refine and upgrade the services offered bythis national biodiversity data infrastructure.
Established in December 2013 and coordinatedby the University of Bremen, GFBio represents
a collaboration between 19 national partners,
including the hosts of GBIF’s German nodes.
Read more on the GFBio website

Read the full story on the ALA blog

Conference showcases Belgian
biodiversity informatics projects

The Belgian Biodiversity Platform and otherpartner institutes organized a full-day conferencein Brussels in May that highlighted several toolfocused Belgian research projects.
The event started with three keynote presentations:• The biodiversity informatics landscape in
Belgium, by Hilde Eggermont of the Belgian
Biodiversity Platform• The future of biodiversity informatics, by Vince

MENTORING AND TRAINING
Material from Norwegian data paper
workshop available online

GBIF Norway, assisted by the Belgium Biodiversity
Information Facility, organized its second workshop
on 24-25 March 2015, on writing data papers– searchable metadata documents describing
datasets and published through a peer-reviewed
process. Twenty-three participants from the NTNU
University Museum in Trondheim, the NorwegianInstitute for Nature Research (NINA), the Norwegian
Biodiversity Information Centre (Artsdatabanken)
99GBitsand the GBIF network developed manuscripts
based on existing datasets, some of which will be
submitted for publication.

The June workshop is part of one of six capacity
enhancement projects to receive GBIF support in2015.

Read agenda and course material

Participants used their existing datasets during
the workshop, which led the Ecole Doctoralede Biodiversité et Environnements Tropicaux,
Université de Toliara to publish its collection of
527 occurrences from a plant inventory of the Beza
Mahafaly Reserve in southwest Madagascar.

GBIF Benin featured on national TV

A 13-minute introduction to GBIF Benin and theiractivities was aired on BB 24, the second largest
television network in the country, on the occasionof a data mobilization workshop that the nodeorganized in Cotonou in May. The programmefeatures interviews with both Gaston Akouehou,
the head of Benin’s delegation, and node manager
Jean Cossi Ganglo.

View event updates on Twitter at#FormationMadBIF

EVENTS
6th International Barcode of Life Conference
18 - 21 August 2015, Guelph, Canada

See TV spot on GBIF Benin

GBIF France trains Malagasy data
managers on data publishing and use
Thirty-two participants from 12 biodiversity
organizations in Madagascar received training
from visiting experts from GBIF France during afour-day event hosted by the local node, MadBIF.

Systematics Association Biennial
26-28 August 2015, Oxford, United Kingdom
50th European Marine Biology Symposium
21-25 September 2015, Helgoland, Germany
XVII Congress of European Mycologists
21-25 September 2015, Madeira, Portugal
RDA Sixth Plenary Meeting
23-25 September 2015, Paris, France
Building Capacity for Conservation & Resource
Management in Africa
28 September - 2 October 2015, Nairobi, Kenya
2015 TDWG Annual Conference
29 September - 3 October 2015, Nairobi, Kenya
Eye on Earth Summit 2015
6-8 October 2015, Abu Dhabi, UAE
GBIF - GB22 Nodes Training Course
4-5 October 2015, Antananarivo, Madagascar

PARTICIPANTS OF THE TRAINING WORKSHOP IN MADAGASCAR

22nd GBIF Governing Board meeting (GB22)
8-10 October 2015, Antananarivo, Madagascar

GBIF Vision A world in which biodiversity information is freely and universallyavailable for science, society, and a sustainable future.
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DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø
Denmark
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