GBIF Seed Money Prioritization ECAT - Electronic Conference (May 25 – June 1, 2005)
Guidelines for participants and contributors
GBIF is preparing to announce the 2005 call for seed-money projects. The GBIF Governing Board has decided that the seed money funds for 2005 and 2006 should be allocated in one combined process to span the two years.
In the past this call has been focused on assisting those projects that would give the largest addition to the ECAT Catalogue for the least amount of money - the “low hanging fruit”. However, Participants have indicated in the Governing Board that GBIF needs more depth in areas that will be of use in larger-scale, timely concerns such as The International Pollinators Initiative (IPI), The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), Invasive Alien Species and indicator species in support of The Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) 2010 Biodiversity Target.
The GBIF Science Committee’s subcommittee on ECAT has discussed the question of priorities and has recommended prioritisation of taxonomic initiatives that deal with taxa under the cross cutting issues listed below. In order to make this prioritisation process as transparent and thorough as possible, and in order to achieve the widest possible input, we are involving the broader biodiversity community, including GBIF stakeholders. The GBIF Secretariat is doing this by hosting an e-conference to discuss possible priorities for the seed money programme for 2005 and 2006.
The ECAT priorities are likely to change over time in order to reflect the filling of gaps in taxonomic coverage of the Earth’s biota (click here to see this gap analysis) and current priorities of the stake holders. The outcome of this prioritisation exercise will form the basis for future adjustments.
GBIF hopes that the final call will encourage consortia to take on large-scale projects that will fill major gaps in the current coverage, and help meet policy needs, such as:
Pollinators
The decline in natural pollinators has been addressed by the Convention on Biological Diversity in its COP Decision III/11 and subsequently by the São Paulo Declaration on Pollinators, resulting in the formation of the International Pollinators Initiative.
Global Strategy for Plant Conservation
The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) includes 16 outcome-oriented global targets for completion by 2010. The ultimate and long-term objective of the Strategy is to halt the current and continuing loss of plant diversity. Target 1 of the GSPC is: “A widely accessible working list of known plant species, as a step towards a complete world flora”. Further information on Target 1 of the GSPC can be found by clicking here . Discussion of the major gaps and barriers preventing the completion of Target 1 can be found by following the "workshop" link.
Invasive Alien Species
Invasive species are accounted as a severe threat to biodiversity. To assist in combating invasive species both the Global Invasive Species Programme and the Global Invasive Species Information Network have been set up. The mission of the latter is, in part, to provide a platform for sharing invasive species information at a global level, via the Internet and other digital means. This platform will link to GBIF, among other providers, and the names of invasive species will be required to populate it.
Indicator taxa in support of the 2010 Biodiversity Target
The current trend in identifying indicator taxa for the 2010 target is to use only those taxa for which a good taxonomic authority file is available (e.g. Birds, Butterflies and large Mammals for Europe). Such taxa are generally already represented through GBIF. However, additional groups, which might offer potentially valuable indicator information but for which there is no well-developed taxonomic authority file might be considered. Such groups are likely to be represented by a significant amount of high-quality specimen-level information.
GBIF portal gaps
Some large specimen-level datasets accessible through GBIF are not supported by a well developed taxonomic authority file. The usefulness of these data can be increased tremendously by the development of taxonomies to support them. A gap analysis carried out in May 2005 indicates that some large datasets are currently not backed by taxonomic data connected to the network.
