Darwin Core: An Evolving Community-Developed Biodiversity Data Standard

Biodiversity data derive from myriad sources stored in various formats on many distinct hardware and software platforms. An essential step towards understanding global patterns of biodiversity is to provide a standardized view of these heterogeneous data sources to improve interoperability. Fundamen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 7; no. 1; p. e29715
Main Authors: Wieczorek, John, Bloom, David, Guralnick, Robert, Blum, Stan, Döring, Markus, Giovanni, Renato, Robertson, Tim, Vieglais, David
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 06.01.2012
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Advisors
Animals
Archives & records
Biodiversity
Biological evolution
Biology
Biota
Biotechnology
Communities
Computer Science
Consortia
Data Collection - standards
Databases, Factual - standards
Developmental biology
Distributed processing
Documentation
Dublin Core Format
Earth Sciences
Ecology
Ecosystems
Environment
Environmental changes
Environmental economics
Evolution
Evolution, Molecular
Genetic algorithms
Genetic Fitness - genetics
Genetic Fitness - physiology
Genetic resources
Genomics
Guidelines as Topic
Humans
Informatics
Information Storage and Retrieval - standards
Interoperability
Knowledge management
Models, Biological
Natural history
New records
Science
Selection, Genetic
Taxonomy
Trends
Validation Studies as Topic
Working groups
Denmark
Washington DC
California
United States > US
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Description
Summary:Biodiversity data derive from myriad sources stored in various formats on many distinct hardware and software platforms. An essential step towards understanding global patterns of biodiversity is to provide a standardized view of these heterogeneous data sources to improve interoperability. Fundamental to this advance are definitions of common terms. This paper describes the evolution and development of Darwin Core, a data standard for publishing and integrating biodiversity information. We focus on the categories of terms that define the standard, differences between simple and relational Darwin Core, how the standard has been implemented, and the community processes that are essential for maintenance and growth of the standard. We present case-study extensions of the Darwin Core into new research communities, including metagenomics and genetic resources. We close by showing how Darwin Core records are integrated to create new knowledge products documenting species distributions and changes due to environmental perturbations.
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Wrote the paper: JW DB R. Guralnick SB MD R. Giovanni TR DV.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0029715