Biodiversity Informatics: CRIA’s Experience

1. Biodiversity Informatics: CRIA’s Experience Dora Ann Lange Canhos dora@cria.org.br

2. Institutional Mission • Dissemination of scientific and technological information and the promotion of education with a view of contributing towards a more sustainable use of Brazil's natural resources.

3. Aim • Make scientific data and information useful and “useable” in a way that it can be incorporated in the definition of local, regional and national strategies for conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

4. Decision making • conservation • managing • sustainable use • restoration, rehabilitation • Policies and • Strategies • government • industry • individuals action knowledge information Challenge: increase the use of scientific data about biodiversity data observation real world

5. Building knowledge about biodiversity • Collective, multi and inter-disciplinary • Requires a global cooperative environment • Depends on a comparative data and knowledge base

6. Challenges for biodiversity informatics • Technical • standardization, integration, validation, storage, recovery, analysis, synthesis, and dissemination of environmental data and information • “usefulness” to non specialist communities • Social • help to promote “cultural” changes concerning data sharing • establish partnerships • promote open and free access to data on the Internet • Sustainability • project based versus long term support

7. CRIA’s Focus: biodiversity informatics • Data • Focus on species and specimen data • Content: through partnerships • Freely and openly available information systems • Tools: data providers • Interoperability • Data cleaning • Data visualization • Monitoring • Tools: use • Species distribution modeling

11. BIOTA/FAPESP The Virtual Institute of Biodiversity • SinBiota (Atlas) • Biota Neotropica • speciesLink Overall aim: inventory and characterize the biodiversity of the State of São Paulo, and define the mechanisms for its conservation and sustainable use.

12. April/2006 Projects 76 “Authors” 755 Users 219 Surveys 12,396 “names” 90,504 unique 10,386 “names” Environmental Information System: field surveys http://sinbiota.cria.org.br

14. Web Interface Maps Map service User Web server Database Biota program researcher Field records and associated species list

15. Atlas SinBiota

20. Collections at Smithsonian, NMNH Photos: Chip Clark

22. DiGIRPortal speciesLink site Presentation Layer Lib DiGir Fast and stable connectivity Regional Server Collection A SQL ProviderPHP SQL DataPostgres ProviderPHP Data CollectionManagementSystem MirrorSOAP server Slow or unstable connectivity Collection B Collection C SQL spLinkerJava Data spLinkerJava Data SQL Data Repository Data Repository CollectionManagementSystem CollectionManagementSystem

23. Data Migration Client • Platform independent (java) • Connects to any database accessible via JDBC • (simple text files are also supported) • Complete control over data • Low traffic • Possibility to filter sensitive data using a regular expression

24. Herbário do Instituto de Biociências, UNESP Rio Claro Coleção de Microrganismos de Ambiente e Indústria, UNICAMP Campinas B M SinBiota Sistema de Informação Ambiental do Programa Biota - Fapesp M ZB Coleção de Anfíbios do Instituto de Biociências UNESP, Rio Claro Herbário do Instituto Agronômico de Campinas Z B Herbário da UNICAMP, Campinas B Col. Culturas de Fitobactérias Lab. De Bacteriologia Vegetal Instituto Biológico, Campinas M Servidor Regional Coleção de Acari Museu de Zoologia, ESALQ, Piracicaba Z Herbário do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro B Herbário do Departamento De Ciências Biológicas da ESALQ, Piracicaba B Coleção de Peixes do Laboratório de Ictiologia, USP, Ribeirão Preto Z Servidor Regional Herbário da USP, São Paulo B Coleção de Peixes Dept. Zoologia e Botânica, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto Z Coleção de Peixes Museu de Zoologia da USP, São Paulo Z Servidor Regional Servidor Regional Coleção de Fungos Instituto de Botânica, São Paulo Coleção de Acari Dept. Zoologia e Botânica, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto M Z Coleção de Algas Instituto de Botânica, São Paulo B Coleção de Anfíbios Dept. Zoologia e Botânica, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto Z Servidor Regional Coleção de Fanerógamas Herbário do Instituto de Botânica, São Paulo B Servidor Regional Herbário Dom Bento Pickel do Instituto Florestal, São Paulo B Coleção de Quirópteros Dept. Zoologia e Botânica, UNESP, São José do Rio Preto Z Herbário de Ilha Solteira, UNESP Ilha Solteira B Herbário do Instituto de Biociências, UNESP, Botucatu B Coleção Científica de Aranhas do Dept. Zoologia e Botânica, UNESP, Botucatu Coleção do Museu de Entomologia da FEIS/UNESP Ilha Solteira Z Z

25. speciesLink – splink.cria.org.br • data providers (collections) have full control over their data (add, modify, remove) • curators don’t have to change their routine or system because of the network and have complete liberty in selecting the software they want to use • filters were developed to enable curators to block sensitive data • tools were developed to help curators with data cleaning, visualization, ... • a monitoring system accessible on the internet was developed • study cases with ecological niche modeling were developed (data use)

26. Information management • Biological collections: what, where, who, when • Tools: • Managers (system, project, data): monitoring, indicators • Provider: data cleaning; spatial visualization, collection profile, distribution, ... • User: search, geographic distribution, modeling

36. Partners in Brazil

37. International Partners • Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) • Kansas University • California Academy of Science • Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley • Biodiversity World • Research groups from Australia and Europe

38. Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental • Obrigada. • Dora Ann Lange Canhos • dora@cria.org.br • www.cria.org.br