University of the Azores; Department of Oceanography and Fisheries (DOP), more
Naturalis Biodiversity Center; Expert Center For Taxonomic Identification - BioInformatics (ETI), more
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences; Department of Entomology
Abstract
The Fauna Europaea project will build a public WWW service on the scientific names (with selected additional data) of the present living multicellular European terrestrial and fresh water animal species, based on the available data in Europe. The project contributes to the European Community Biodiversity Strategy by supporting one of the main themes in the Strategy: the request to identify and catalogue the components of biodiversity, of which a data base on the European taxonomic diversity is a basic tool for science and conservation policies. The data originate from different sources, which implies the establishment of routines for easy and manageable ways to update the info, and the development of a dynamic system that allows for changes through time. The Fauna Europaea project will result in an unique overview of the state of art with respect to our knowledge of the European animal species. As such it will help to identify gaps in knowledge and expertise.
Problems to be solved
The assessment of biodiversity, monitoring changes, sustainable exploitation of biodiversity, and much legislative work depends upon validated knowledge of its components: the taxonomic diversity. The same applies for areas such as human health, agriculture, or freshwater quality. However, the required data are not directly available or in the requested format. Information and expertise on the European animal species is scattered around numerous public and private organisations, they are in different formats and standards, and are of unequal quality. The Community Biodiversity Strategy of the European Commission recognises the current incomplete state of knowledge at all levels concerning biodiversity. It asks for establishing networks between European centres of excellence in biodiversity research. Fauna Europaea contributes to the European Community Biodiversity Strategy by supporting one of the main themes in the Strategy: the request to identify and catalogue the components of biodiversity, of which a database on the European terrestrial animal taxonomic diversity is a basic tool for science and policies. Scientific objectives and approach The Fauna Europaea project will build a public WWW service on the scientific names (with selected additional data) of the present living multicellular European terrestrial and fresh water animal species. As the project is complicated because of the large number of data of different quality and the widely distributed data sources in Europe, the development of the project depends on the contributions of numerous experts.
Central in the workplan is the division of the work in three mutually linked main tasks:
(1) data collation,
(2) data validation, and
(3) data management, including supporting information technology.
The data originate from different sources, which implies the establishment of routines for easy and manageable ways to update the data, and the development of a dynamic system that allows for changes through time. Priority setting, product presentation and dissemination plans will be discussed with the end-user forum.
Expected impacts
Policies with respect to biodiversity and fauna-related products will be support ed by standardized information and thus facilitate communication about the names of animals, thereby ensuring that a name (and its information attributes) is effectively referring to the same species Europe wide. The use of this thesaurus f unction is increasingly important for numerous reasons, the political, administrative and economic integration being a foremost factor. Users may also select various subsets of information or combine these with other data for many purposes, as for example for the management of animal species or for the use of correct reference data in biotechnology.
The Fauna Europaea project will result in an unique overview of the state of art with respect to our knowledge and help to identify gaps in knowledge and expertise. The results of this analysis will contribute to more focussed European research activities and avoid duplication of effort s that otherwise should not be noticed. By networking of researchers, database custodians and users, an unique effort will result in building and maintaining an informatics infrastructure that will support the collation of harmonized and validated taxonomical data, as well as offer access to these data to a wider user community. Remark: Not all the partners are mentioned here.
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy
