LifeWatch Biodiversity Day 2024

General

• Website & Program
• Organiser: LifeWatch Belgium
• Host: KVAB (Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts), Palace of the Academies, Rue Ducale 1, 1000 Brussels
• Date: 30/01/2024

Introduction

Importance of Taxonomy for biodiversity policy

Presenter: Hendrik Segers (Institute of Natural Sciences; Coordinator & National Focal Point to the Convention on Biological Diversity)

Taxonomy is still relevant today at global level.

COP15 recognizes the value of depositing data in public databases.

Welcoming the efforts of databases including the International Nucleotide Sequence Database COllaboration, to encourage the tagging of records with information on geographical origin.

Acknowledging the FAIR and CARE principles.

Taxonomic data systems - current state and future perspectives

Taxonomy in the Digital Age - Opportunities to get the Job Done

Presenter: Peter Schalk (Naturalis Biodiversity Center; Chair Board of Directors Stichting Catalogue of Life & Species 2000 ltd)

Key challenge: understand our changing world. Assess the change, predict it, estimate its consequences, provide quality input to support policy

THis cannot be done without taxonomy! The art of naming things

Using the proper - valid - scientific name is essential for meaningful communication in science.

Why do users need taxonomic services? Because all species information is tied to a name.

Authoritative taxonomic services are relevant for a wide range of policy domaines. Example: Agriculture, Forestry, hHealth and Medical, Biosecurity, etc.

Carl Linnaeus gave us the fundamentals for modern day taxonomy by a systematic naming and ranking of species.

Our taxonomic knowledge is way far to be complete.

The seed of Catalogue of Life: species 2000. “Let us bring together the knowledge of the global taxonomic community in a single shared authoritative system that can be used by all. (IUBS meeting 1996), Frank Bisby

OECD MegaSCience Forum: seed of GBIF was planted.

CoL Checklist: 165 data sources & a global community of 500+ experts.

Taxonomy is not that simple:

• Taxonomy is dynamic. Names changes are frequent - hard to keep up; not all described names are indexed. Not all taxonomic groups are a global consolidated overview of described species
• Mobilising data is hard. It needs dedicated, expert staff to assist in lifting barriers. Additional effort is needed from the original data custodian
• Digitisation made it worse. Not all context of data is shared, making validation and reuse difficult. Small variations of the same taxonomic concept create confusion

Urgent need: Unifying Validated Name Uses Across Species Information Domains.

GBIF and CoL sat together to create a synergy. GBIF-COL ChecklistBank was born. GBIF host it, CoL manages it

Open data, open access taxonomic information

ChecklistBank includes literature (PLAZI, Pensoft, …), Natural History Collections & species names (ZooBank, DISSCO, iDigBio)

Twin legal bodies:

• Species 2000 Ltd: data providers & engaging the world taxonomic community
• St. Catalogue of Life: manage infrastructure & data services

How is it paid? THe CoL Secretariat is enabled/funded through Institutional Hosting Agreements

• 2001-2012: University of Reading, school
• 2013-2023 Naturalis Biodiversity Center.
• 2024: GBIF!

GBIF-COl checklistBank is endorsed by GBIF? TDWG and CBD.

Next steps:

• COL Editor becomes a COL Editorial Forum populated by the expert-editor in the various taxonomic data providing domains (Sorms, SpeciesFiles, ITIS, WFO, and others)
• Unify and standardise the quality control process under COL providers, and develop a global taxonomic quality assurance & control mechanism
• Populated COL governance with representatives of biodiversity data initiatives in various domains (GBIF, LifeWatch, EEA, IUCN, )

Budget:

• NASA budget of 2022 ~~27160 million US Dollars (2012: 18700 mln)
• ESA ~7800 million Euro (in 2012: 3676 mln)
• SpaceX in 2022 estimated at least ~2000 million US DOllars
• CERN in 2023 ~1500 million EUro (2012: 1076 mln)
• GBIF in 2023 ~~3.6 million Euro (2013: 3.5 mln)
• CoL Sec in 2023 ~0.35 million Euro (2014: 0.29 mln)

the biodiversity informatics community must collaborate, and sell its services better because we have more impact. We are federated together!

Metrics and insights from the World Register of Marine Species

Presenter: Leen Vandepitte (Aphia/WoRMS coordinator, Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ))

Aristoteles is “Linnaeus avant la letter”. To fast forward, let’s speak about marbef, Marine Biodiversity & Ecosystem Functioning, Eu Network of Excellence 2004-2009.

European Register of Marine Species: first a book, 2001, the “ERMS 1.0”. in 2004 became an online

244.683: accepted marine species at the moment. 504 counting synonyms.

Unknown species? Up to 2 million.

Most of the discovered species come from the kingdom Animalia.

• Ratio Male - Female - Unknown: 55% - 24% - 21%
• Age: 23 - 85, of which 50% younger than 48
• 14% editors are regular “binge-editors”
• 422 online edits per day = ~ 1 edit every 3 mins

Challenges for WoRMS: The challenge of authorships. Examples:

• George Brettingham (G.B.) Sowery: 3 generations of identical names.
• Dalton: many brothers.
• typos, small variants, etc.

Unknowns:

• How many marine species actually exist?
• how many taxonomis are out there. WHoe are they exactly?
• Where are species actually discovered? (problems uniquely describing localities)

The Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment (FADA): a taxonomic backbone for global biodiversity databases

Presenter: Koen Martens (Institute of Natural Sciences, InfraFADA)

infraFADA: upgrading the taxonomic backbone of global freshwater animal biodiversity research infrastructures (2023-2026)

infraFADA is revamping an older initiative: FADA. FADA stands for: “Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment”.

The paradox of fresh water (FW). An outstanding diversity in such a restricted habitat:

The need for DATA:¨quantitative estimates of FW biological diversity for conservation purposes. You cannot adequately know what you don’t know.

FW is a macro category as we have several different FW ecosystems.

The Early FADA era: 2005-2013.

• ~60 world experts (representative of 150 experts) of FW animal groups met in Belgium. -2005-2008: Belspo funded project.
• uniformize approach amongst taxonomic groups

World number of FW species: 127749 species (~76k insects, ~18k vertebrates, ~13k crustaceans)

Objectives of infraFADA:

• Objective 1 – (rebuilding of) CONSORTIUM
• Objective 2 – TOOLS: coordinated by BOKU (with Kartoza). Fadatims: a curation system + FADA database
• Objective 3 – DATA EXCHANGE. Data taxa lists as taxonomic backbone of GBIF/CoL provide data to other global initiatives (DiSSCo, eBioAtalas, LifeWatch), API using DarwinCore standard, re-establishing connections to WoRMS
• Objective 4 – PUBLICATIONS
• Objective 5 – OUTREACH

infraFADA should not end as the early FADA. A valorisation and after-project plan must be present.

Freshwater Informatio Platform (FIP):

• Founding members: BOKU, RBINS, IGB, UDE
• Content: FADA, traits data, atlas, blog, … After-project sustainability:
• database: IGB
• Expert Consortium: RBINS
• DATAtims: BOKU

Need for an integrated business plan.