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C O D A T A

Global Species Data Networks

http://www.sp2000.org/

Approved by the CODATA 23^rd General Assembly in Montréal 2002
Renewal approved by the CODATA General Assembly, Berlin 2004
Renewal approved by the CODATA 25th General Assembly, Beijing 2006

Long-term goal:

To create a comprehensive, distributed, web-based index of all known species of plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms – the Catalogue of Life – available as both a Dynamic Checklist and a stabilised Annual Checklist through the Species 2000 and ITIS organisations, to facilitate general global access to data on the world's organisms. One component of this is to create and maintain an authoritative distributed database (the Global Plant Checklist) of all plant species.

Interim objectives in attaining this goal:

The present two-year period (2004 – 2006) has seen spectacular progress both with creating the Catalogue of Life, and in bringing it into service with the large international organisations. The 2006 edition of the Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life Annual Checklist was launched at the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-8) in Curitiba

Brazil

, and has reached a very significant milestone: it now covers 880,000 species, more than half of the world’s known organisms. As well as receiving heavy and growing usage over the internet (including via Google), it is now used as the central taxonomic index for the data portal of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). It has recently been adopted by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), for various programmes such as the Clearing House Mechanism, the Global Taxonomy Initiative and the Global Strategy for plant Conservation target 1. Indeed the CBD has now made the completion of a ‘working list of all known organisms’ a formal target of the Global Taxonomy Initiative.

The 2006 Annual Checklist and the Dynamic Checklist (that uses a distributed harvesting system) are available to all on the web at www.sp2000.org , and the 2006 Annual Checklist is also distributed on a free CD. Thirty seven heterogeneous taxonomic databases around the world are currently federated to create this catalogue, and the number of participant institutions continues to grow: these are the databases that are the focus if this Task Group.

Over the ten year period 1996 – 2006 this daughter of CODATA, first planned at the Chambery CODATA meeting in 1994, has gone from its first tentative workshop in the Philippines (1996) to become a major global programme, developed and used all over the world, and by 2006 is celebrating reaching its half way mark.

During this period the Catalogue of Life programme has received substantial resources far beyond the start-up assistance received from CODATA and IUBS, most notably fixed term grants from the European Commission (2.9 million USD) and the Japanese Government, and ongoing annual support from US and Canadian federal government agencies and from GBIF. These funds to the programme itself are further exceeded by the significant ongoing investment in the taxonomic supplier databases by their custodian organisations. Many of the 37 databases currently on board have cost in the region of 1 – 6 million USD each in their creation and build-up over a 20 year period.

So what will the next two years bring?

· The programme commitment is to attempt near-completion of the Catalogue of Life for the estimated 1.75 million known species in the five years 2006 to 2011, a target originally made by us, but now effectively endorsed by GBIF and the CBD.

· Completing the second half will be substantially more difficult than the first half.

· In particular the programme is developing a ‘Phase 2’ strategy that involves:
a) moving from a single global hub architecture to a network of regional hubs architecture, that will develop new regional and nation taxonomic database hubs.
b) research and development of new biodiversity informatics tools for inter-relating the taxonomies of the different hubs and creating ‘virtual global species databases’ from harvested components in the regional hubs.

· As well as this projected ‘Phase 2’ strategy, the original and successful ‘Phase 1’ strategy will be continued. However, despite the peak of supplier databases coming into the programme this year, we anticipate that the supply of new global species databases will level off until a point at which all the existing ones are linked. Most significantly we expect to reach that point somewhere just over 1.1 million species, that is, well before the full 1.75 million species can be included. So the Phase 2 strategy has in one sense to be researched and implemented to reach the remaining 4 - 500,000 known species, largely via regional databases in the megadiverse countries such as

Brazil

China

and S. Africa.

· So – from a scientific angle, we now project the research and development of an exciting and more sophisticated biodiversity informatics programme:

a) instead of interlinking global species databases to a single global hub, we now also wish to automate the interlinking between multiple hubs

b) and instead of depending solely on harvesting from existing ‘hand-made’ global species databases, we now wish to harvest from the regional hubs to make up our own ‘virtual’ global species databases from distributed components.

· And – from human and institutional networking angle we are now planning absolutely new projects with the big three megadiverse countries:

China

Brazil

and S.Africa.

Recent Activities

· Malta, March 2005: mid-project symposium and meeting of Species 2000 europa ('EuroCat') EU-funded project; also meetings of global Species 2000 Team and working groups

· Brussels, April 2005: Species 2000 delegation participated in Governing Board meeting of GBIF; there launched 2005 version of Species 2000 and ITIS Catalogue of Life Annual Checklist CD-ROM with much improved software

· Asia–Oceania, September 2005: launch of report from 2^nd Global Taxonomy Initiative Regional Workshop in Asia–Oceania (Species 2000 Asia–Oceania helped organise the workshop and publish the report)

· Taichung, Taiwan October 2005: Species 2000 Asia-Oceania meeting and biodiversity symposium.

· Stockholm, October 2005: Species 2000 delegation participated in Governing Board meeting of GBIF; then held final presentation meeting of Species 2000 europa project; also meetings of global Species 2000 team and working groups; new Species 2000 and ITIS Catalogue of Life Dynamic Checklist launched publicly 35-40 Global Species Databases publicly made available for online search and retrieval.

· Europe, 1 January 2006: 3-year Species 2000 europa ('EuroCat') EU-funded project successfully completed.

· Uruguay, January 2006: meeting of Species 2000 Directors.

· Curitiba, Brazil, 19 – 25 March 2006: participate in the CBD Conference of the Parties
including:

launch of the 2006 Annual Checklist and announcement of reaching the ‘half of all known species’ target
four recommendations relating to Species 2000 adopted by the COP.

· Cape Town, 3 – 6 April 2006: participate in the GBIF governing Board and interact with future funding planning and negotiation.

Planned Future Activities

Installation of the 2006 version of the Species 2000 and ITIS Catalogue of Life Annual Checklist as the basis of central indexing for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

[2005 version delivered to GBIF May 2005, installed late 2005.

2006 version delivered to GBIF 21 March 2006, still to be installed (as of 4 April 06)]

Species 2000 and ITIS Catalogue of Life Annual Checklist available on CD-ROM and on-line: 2006 edition launched and the 2007 edition in preparation.

[2006 edition launched publicly at the COP-8 in Curitiba , Brazil; CD-ROMs distributed 21 March 2006; and placed on the web-site (www.sp2000.org) on 22 March 2006. 2007 edition started with a planning meeting at Reading on 9^th March 2006.]

Further deliverable not originally planned in 2004: Preliminary plan for Regional Hub development by China, Brazil and S. Africa in place, with start-up at the CODATA Symposium in Beijing.

Additional Deliverables
·        Initiation of new Phase 2 regional hub projects in China, Brazil and S. Africa.

·        Initiation and funding of new Phase 2 biodiversity informatics research projects for the hub-linking, and harvesting of virtual GSD sectors from regional hubs.

·        Completion of the 2007 and 2008 editions of the Annual Checklist, reaching the target of 1 million species.

·        Continued assistance in creating global species databases for missing groups of plants.

· Development of further global species databases for organisms not presently covered (such as the Rosaceae checklist by Pankhurst with GBIF assistance).

· Continued improvement in electronic access to biological species data (such as SPICE versions 3, 4 and 5 to be installed by Species 2000 in 2004/2005).

· Synergism through bringing together projects with allied aims, as shown by the involvement of International Bodies and European-based database projects in the Species 2000 europa project, such as IPGRI, IUCN, Belgian Biodiversity Platform, European Environment Agency, EC ENBI project, Finnish Natural History Museum, Publishing Consultant etc.

· Better decisions made about biodiversity issues because of these activities (Catalogue of Life becoming established and having a stabilising effect in CBD, GTI, CHM, GBIF organisations).

n.b.: Completion of the Catalogue of Life will, even with favourable conditions, only be achieved at best by 2011 using present targets and indicators of progress. However it needs to be stressed that even at 880,000 species in 2006, the large majority of species addressed regularly in biodiversity research have already been entered to the system. A recent survey showed that 80% of enquiries and searches can already be satisfied by the 2006 data set.

Working to improve the quality, reliability, management and accessibility of Data for Science and Technology