Integrating and Extending Natural Sciences’ and Collections’ Data Resources
Jutta Buschbom, Elizabeth R. Ellwood, Wouter Addink, Nicky Nicolson
Alternet Conference “Achieving Transformative Change for Biodiversity”, Aveiro, Portugal, 13-16 May 2025
Statistical Genetics May 16, 2025
Abstract
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity sets ambitious targets for 2030. Monitoring global progress towards these objectives requires the natural sciences to provide robust evidence at unprecedented size, detail and quality.
Collections-based bio- and geodiversity sciences have integrated with informatics as specimens and related data have been digitized. This interdisciplinary partnership has led to the development of the Digital Extended Specimen (DES) concept. It presents digitized specimens as digital twins and extends the network of interlinked data to include those derived from the specimen itself (e.g. 3D morphology, genomic information) and those associated with its wider context (e.g. taxonomy, ecology, remote sensing, publications). FAIR Digital Objects provide the technical foundation for implementation and democratize data sharing and reuse.
The DES vision requires a sustainable community to define and execute an actionable work program. The International Partners for the Digital Extended Specimen (IPDES) network provides a forum for discussion, promotes the utility and ambition of the DES concept and helps align ongoing developments worldwide through open communication.
The significant scale of this endeavor is now well recognized. We benefit from very engaged, motivated and productive communities that provide a wealth of social networks and initiatives as well as technical data, platforms and functionality, – yet our experience is that these don’t seem to scale to the challenge.
We approach the goal of arriving at rapid scalability and robust resilience by introducing insights from network theory. Exploring their importance to our practical social and technical needs, our aim is to better understand current challenges and develop solutions to upscale capacity for powerful and reliable global biodiversity monitoring. As community, we strive for data resources that support advanced statistical approaches and participatory decision-making. We integrate gained insights into the development of a roadmap, as spearheaded by the US-BIOFAIR project.
PDF of the presentation
Authors
Jutta Buschbom, Statistical Genetics, Ahrensburg, Germany
Elizabeth R. Ellwood, iDigBio, Gainesville, US
Wouter Addink, Natural Biodiversity Center, Leiden, NL
Nicky Nicolson, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, UK
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded BIOFAIR Data Network project, DBI-2303588.
