The World Flora Online & the International Compositae Alliance join forces
About six months after the official launch of the Global Compositae Database through the Aphia infrastructure, its content is now being shared with the World Flora Online. The collaboration between these two initiatives has become official through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
In April 2020, The Global Compositae Database (GCD) – an effort by the International Compositae Alliance – was launched through the Aphia platform, the infrastructure behind the World Register of Marine Species. This launch attracted the attention of the World Flora Online Consortium, an international consortium of institutions and organizations who are collaborating and working towards an online flora of all known plants.
The World Flora Online (WFO) is an open-access, web-based compendium of the world’s 400,000 species of vascular plants and mosses. It is a collaborative, international project, building upon existing knowledge and published floras, checklists and revisions but also requires the collection and generation of new information on poorly known plant groups and plants in unexplored regions. The project is the response to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation 2011-2020 and represents a major step forward in developing a consolidated global information service on the world’s flora.
As the Global Compositae Database (GCD) can tremendously contribute to the goal of the World Flora Online, a collaboration agreement was drawn up, in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This MoU describes the sharing of data from the Global Compositae Database with the World Flora Online. Through this collaboration, the duplication of efforts will be greatly reduced. In their turn, the World Flora Online will share any feedback they receive on the Compositae to the International Compositae Alliance, so the content of the Global Compositae Database can be improved.
The set-up of a Memorandum of Understanding with the World Flora Online – and previously the rescue of the Global Compositae Database - was made possible through support of the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone. LifeWatch, the E-Science European Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, is a distributed virtual laboratory, which is used for different aspects of biodiversity research. The Species Information Backbone of LifeWatch aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data and at filling the gaps in our knowledge. In addition, it gives support to taxonomic experts by providing them logistic and financial support for meetings and workshops related to expanding the content and enhancing the quality of taxonomic databases.
The World Flora Online (WFO) is an open-access, web-based compendium of the world’s 400,000 species of vascular plants and mosses. It is a collaborative, international project, building upon existing knowledge and published floras, checklists and revisions but also requires the collection and generation of new information on poorly known plant groups and plants in unexplored regions. The project is the response to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation 2011-2020 and represents a major step forward in developing a consolidated global information service on the world’s flora.
As the Global Compositae Database (GCD) can tremendously contribute to the goal of the World Flora Online, a collaboration agreement was drawn up, in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This MoU describes the sharing of data from the Global Compositae Database with the World Flora Online. Through this collaboration, the duplication of efforts will be greatly reduced. In their turn, the World Flora Online will share any feedback they receive on the Compositae to the International Compositae Alliance, so the content of the Global Compositae Database can be improved.
The set-up of a Memorandum of Understanding with the World Flora Online – and previously the rescue of the Global Compositae Database - was made possible through support of the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone. LifeWatch, the E-Science European Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, is a distributed virtual laboratory, which is used for different aspects of biodiversity research. The Species Information Backbone of LifeWatch aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data and at filling the gaps in our knowledge. In addition, it gives support to taxonomic experts by providing them logistic and financial support for meetings and workshops related to expanding the content and enhancing the quality of taxonomic databases.
