Biodiversity Collections Index
Research into biodiversity relies on the use of specimens held in reference collections around the world. These collections include herbaria; collections of pinned insects; invertebrates and other organisms stored in spirit; collections of skins, bones and tissues of vertebrates; living collections of fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms; seed banks; DNA collections; and others.
Researchers need to be able to locate and refer to each of these collections and have traditionally done so via reference lists maintained by different communities, in particular lists such as Index Herbariorum and the Insect and Spider Collections of the World databases. Up to this point however there has never been a comprehensive catalogue of all biodiversity collections.
As more information comes to be managed on the web, it has become even more important for there to be such a catalogue. In the absence of such a resource, it is impossible for web databases and other software to determine whether information from different sources relates to the same physical collection.
For this reason, GBIF, TDWG and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh have been collaborating to develop the Biodiversity Collections Index (BCI, http://www.biocol.org/). This is intended to serve as an online catalogue of information about all the world’s biodiversity collections.
The ALA wishes to bring together information on all biodiversity collections held within Australia and plans to do so within the BCI. This will make us part of a larger, global community sharing responsibility for managing this information into the future and will ensure that Australian collections are visible globally.
The list of Australian collections which have already been registered with BCI can be seen here.
The ALA team has been reviewing the existing Australian entries in BCI and will make some additions. We would however urge those Australian collection managers to check the BCI entry for their collection or register their collection if it is not yet included.
Please contact us at atlasoflivingaustralia@csiro.au if you have any questions.
