Publications

In the framework of implementing the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), there is still confusion between the concept of data FAIRness (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable, Wilkinson et al. 2016) and the idea of open and freely accessible data, which are not necessarily the same. Data can indeed comply with the requirements of FAIRness even if their access is moderated or behind a paywall. Therefore the motto of EOSC is actually ...

In recent years several species of American cudweeds (Gamochaeta; Gnaphalium s.l.) have increasingly been recorded in Belgium and the Netherlands, especially (but not exclusively) in urban habitats. Since these species are naturalizing – at least one even on a relatively large scale – assessing their genuine identity is necessary. Three species are eventually accepted: G. coarctata (previously erroneously ascribed to G. purpurea), G. ...

The unprecedented generation of large volumes of biodiversity data is consistently contributing to a wide range of disciplines, including disease ecology. Emerging infectious diseases are usually zoonoses caused by multi-host pathogens. Therefore, their understanding may require the access to biodiversity data related to the ecology and the occurrence of the species involved. Nevertheless, despite several data-mobilization initiatives, the usage ...

The paper summarises many years of discussions and experience of biodiversity publishers, organisations, research projects and individual researchers, and proposes recommendations for implementation of persistent identifiers for article metadata, structural elements (sections, subsections, figures, tables, references, supplementary materials and others) and data specific to biodiversity (taxonomic treatments, treatment citations, taxon names, ...

Invasive alien species (IAS) are a key driver of global biodiversity loss. Reducing their spread and impact is a target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG target 15.8) and of the EU IAS Regulation 1143/2014. The use of citizen science offers various benefits to alien species’ decision-making and to society, since public participation in research and management boosts awareness, engagement and scientific literacy and can reduce conflict in ...

The BiCIKL project is born from a vision that biodiversity data are most useful if they are presented as a network of data that can be integrated and viewed from different starting points. BiCIKL’s goal is to realise that vision by linking biodiversity data infrastructures, particularly for literature, molecular sequences, specimens, nomenclature and analytics. To make those links we need to better understand the existing infrastructures, their ...

Scientific collections have been built by people. For hundreds of years, people have collected, studied, identified, preserved, documented and curated collection specimens. Understanding who those people are is of interest to historians, but much more can be made of these data by other stakeholders once they have been linked to the people’s identities and their biographies. Knowing who people are helps us attribute work correctly, validate data ...

The landscape of biodiversity data infrastructures and organisations is complex and fragmented. Many occupy specialised niches representing narrow segments of the multidimensional biodiversity informatics space, while others operate across a broad front but differ from others by data type(s) handled, their geographic scope and the life cycle phase(s) of the data they support. In an effort to characterise the various dimensions of the ...