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One of the biggest threats to biodiversity is climate change, according to the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)(CBD Secretariat Communique: Celebrating the International Day for Biological Diversity.
Since GBIF began, biodiversity data available on its network have always been freely and openly shared, in service to the CBD, science and society.
However, to analyze the effects of climate change on biodiversity, data such as that mediated by GBIF need to be linked together with climate change data. A major instrument for making such a link will be the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). GBIF is now contributing to the construction of the GEOSS (see http://www.gbif.org/Stories/STORY1178548797).
The GBIF Secretariat and collaborators in Florence, Helsinki and Ottawa have responded to a call for contributions to the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot. This work, which is now underway, includes the following activities:
- Developing formal scenarios and "use cases" that employ GBIF data to address climate change issues. These examples are needed in the process of developing system requirements for the GEOSS Clearinghouse, which will be an interoperable register of registries, including the GBIF data registry system. For details, see
http://circa.gbif.net/Public/irc/gbif/ict/library?l=/presentations/gbif_scenarios_ppt/.
- Enhancing the OpenModeller workbench with GEOSS metadata and online access to GBIF's new REST-based data access services. OpenModeller is an innovative framework for carrying out various computer modelling tasks using different algorithms in an integrated but open manner. In order to use OpenModeller for Ecological Niche Modelling, climate, environmental and biodiversity layers must be accessible from within the OpenModeller installation. A new computing server that will use a new AJAX-based interface and ISO 19115 metadata to access the desired climate change data layers from remote sources registered at GEOSS Clearinghouse has been set up by the Italian National Research Council (CNR - IMAA) at the University of Florence, in Prato, Italy. See Figure 1.
- Using GBIF online data about selected groups of organisms to model their adaptation to predicted scenarios of climate change. Canadian and Alaskan butterfly data, which is readily available through GBIF from the Canadian Biodiversity Facility and other providers in the region, has been selected for the first analyses. Other groups will be analysed in subsequent studies. The Canadian Facility for Ecoinformatics Research at the University of Ottawa is working on this with funding from the GEO Secretariat. See Figure 2.
Results of this work will appear in coming months and will be highlighted in upcoming meetings throughout the year 2007. GBIF hopes that these demonstrations will show how GBIF data can be used in analyses leading to solutions to significant environmental problems when combined with data available via GEOSS.
For more information, contact Hannu Saarenmaa or Éamonn Ó Tuama at the GBIF Secretariat, Stefano Nativi at University of Florence, or Jeremy Kerr at University of Ottawa.
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