Improving Darwin Core for research and management of alien species

Groom, Quentin; Desmet, Peter; Reyserhove, Lien; Adriaens, Tim; Oldoni, Damiano; Vanderhoeven, Sonia; Baskauf, Steve; Chapman, Arthur D.; McGeoch, Melodie A.; Walls, Ramona; Wieczorek, John; Wilson, John R.; Zermoglio, Paula; Simpson, Annie

doi:10.3897/biss.3.38084

Cited by 41 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Currently, terminologies are not consistently used across databases, although standard concepts have been published (Blackburn et al 2011). In the SInAS workflow, we provide a translation of terms following common standards (Darwin Core Task Group 2009;Groom et al 2019), but the definitions of these terms may vary among primary sources and projects, which often cannot be standardised ret-rospectively. It is therefore essential to stick to common definitions and transparent workflows already in the primary literature, to clearly specify which definition is used.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While advancements have been made in other fields of biodiversity research, with online platforms such as GBIF including a full and citable version control, many databases on biological invasions are still curated by individuals or research groups and might not be publicly available at all. Changing this situation will require there being: 1) an incentive for researchers to publish their data online, ideally with a digital object identifier (DOI) and versioning as provided by online platforms such as GBIF or long-term archives such as Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/) or Dryad (https://datadryad.org), and following the FAIR principles of data management; 2) professional training and technical support for data management; and 3) clear guidelines and standards to ease such data publications (Groom et al 2019). For some of these aspects, support is already available but still not widely adopted such as the "Guide to Data Management in Ecology and Evolution" published by the British Ecological Society (2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Translation tables provide information about the entries in the original databases and the corresponding terms that are to be used in the merged database. These are part of the workflow package (see section 'Data and code availability' below), and follow the recommendations by Groom et al (2019) in standardising the Darwin Core terms 'establishmentMeans', 'occurrenceStatus' and 'pathway', and adopting their suggestion to include a new term 'degreeOfEstablishment', describing the status of the taxon at a particular location (Suppl. material 2: Table S1).…”

Section: Step 1: Preparation Of Databasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, to be comparable with the wealth of invasion literature that does not properly attribute "status", and for reasons of linguistic simplicity, we still refer to alien species rather than using the correct alien populations. Although the proposal by Groom et al (2019) has not yet been ratified by the Biodiversity Information Standards organisation, we used it in the workflow as the proposed terminology covers dimensions critical to invasion biology, policy, and management (McGeoch and Jetz 2019), and thus will provide helpful information irrespective of its official incorporation into Darwin Core. The Darwin Core term 'habitat' is also standardised within the workflow; however, as a categorisation of different habitats is not provided by Darwin Core, we provide one in the respective translation table (Suppl.…”

Section: Step 1: Preparation Of Databasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A workflow for standardising and integrating alien species distribution data

Seebens¹,

Clarke²,

Groom³

et al. 2020

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Biodiversity data are being collected at unprecedented rates. Such data often have significant value for purposes beyond the initial reason for which they were collected, particularly when they are combined and collated with other data sources. In the field of invasion ecology, however, integrating data represents a major challenge due to the notorious lack of standardisation of terminologies and categorisations, and the application of deviating concepts of biological invasions. Here, we introduce the SInAS workflow, short for Standardising and Integrating Alien Species data. The SInAS workflow standardises terminologies following Darwin Core, location names using a proposed translation table, taxon names based on the GBIF backbone taxonomy, and dates of first records based on a set of predefined rules. The output of the SInAS workflow provides various entry points that can be used both to improve coherence among the databases and to check and correct the original data. The workflow is flexible and can be easily adapted and extended to the needs of different users. We illustrate the workflow using a case-study integrating five widely used global databases of information on biological invasions. The comparison of the standardised databases revealed a surprisingly low degree of overlap, which indicates that the amount of data may currently not be fully exploited in the original databases. We highly recommend the use and development of publicly available workflows to ensure that the integration of databases is reproducible and transparent. Workflows, such as SInAS, ultimately increase trust in data, study results, and conclusions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Step 1: Preparation Of Databasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Step 1: Preparation Of Databasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A workflow for standardising and integrating alien species distribution data

Seebens¹,

Clarke²,

Groom³

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Lists can be derived using in situ or ex situ information and combining several different approaches, such as literature searches, GIS-based techniques, and ground-based surveys. Lists of IAS need to be carefully reviewed by experts and should be standardised as much as possible (McGeoch et al 2012;Latombe et al 2019;Groom et al 2019). Funding should be made available to conduct surveys at all under-resourced WHS to inform the reactive ''state of conservation'' assessments undertaken by UNESCO and IUCN.…”

Section: A Standardised Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism For Biologmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites: current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework

et al. 2020

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UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are areas of outstanding universal value and conservation importance. They are, however, threatened by a variety of global change drivers, including biological invasions. We assessed the current status of biological invasions and their management in 241 natural and mixed WHS globally by reviewing documents collated by UNESCO and IUCN. We found that reports on the status of biological invasions in WHS were often irregular or inconsistent. Therefore, while some reports were very informative, they were hard to compare because no systematic method of reporting was followed. Our review revealed that almost 300 different invasive alien species (IAS) were considered as a threat to just over half of all WHS. Information on IAS management undertaken in WHS was available for fewer than half of the sites that listed IAS as a threat. There is clearly a need for an improved monitoring and reporting system for biological invasions in WHS and likely the same for other protected areas globally. To address this issue, we developed a new framework to guide monitoring and reporting of IAS in protected areas building on globally accepted standards for IAS assessments, and tested it on seven WHS. The framework requires the collation of information and reporting on pathways, alien species presence, impacts, and management, the estimation of future threats and management needs, assessments of knowledge and gaps, and, using all of this information allows for an overall threat score to be assigned to the protected area. This new framework should help to improve monitoring of IAS in protected areas moving forward.

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Knowledge sharing for shared success in the decade on ecosystem restoration

Ladouceur

Shackelford

Bouazza³

et al. 2022

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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The Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to provide the means and incentives for upscaling restoration efforts worldwide. Although ecosystem restoration is a broad, interdisciplinary concept, effective ecological restoration requires sound ecological knowledge to successfully restore biodiversity and ecosystem services in degraded landscapes. We emphasize the critical role of knowledge and data sharing to inform synthesis for the most robust restoration science possible. Such synthesis is critical for helping restoration ecologists better understand how context affects restoration outcomes, and to increase predictive capacity of restoration actions. This predictive capacity can help to provide better information for evidence‐based decision‐making, and scale‐up approaches to meet ambitious targets for restoration. We advocate for a concerted effort to collate species‐level, fine‐scale, ecological community data from restoration studies across a wide range of environmental and ecological gradients. Well‐articulated associated metadata relevant to experience and social or landscape contexts can further be used to explain outcomes. These data could be carefully curated and made openly available to the restoration community to help to maximize evidence‐based knowledge sharing, enable flexible re‐use of existing data and support predictive capacity in ecological community responses to restoration actions. We detail how integrated data, analysis and knowledge sharing via synthesis can support shared success in restoration ecology by identifying successful and unsuccessful outcomes across diverse systems and scales. We also discuss potential interdisciplinary solutions and approaches to overcome challenges associated with bringing together subfields of restoration practice. Sharing this knowledge and data openly can directly inform actions and help to improve outcomes for the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

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Improving Darwin Core for research and management of alien species

Cited by 41 publications

References 17 publications

A workflow for standardising and integrating alien species distribution data

A workflow for standardising and integrating alien species distribution data

Biological invasions in World Heritage Sites: current status and a proposed monitoring and reporting framework

Knowledge sharing for shared success in the decade on ecosystem restoration

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