Botanical information in the Italian Biodiversity Network: One year of data aggregation and future perspectives

Abstract

Since its formal institution in May 2012, the Italian Biodiversity Network is aggregating data from several research centres, for a total of ca. 1.5 million records. Botanical data made ca. 50% of the total, and range from primary biodiversity data to ecological, morpho-anatomical and taxonomical information. However, this is only a small portion of the total amount of botanical data which could be aggregated and exposed to the scientific community, professionals and citizens. In this paper we present the current status of data aggregation of the Network and its impact on digitalisation of biodiversity data, research, conservation and environmental management and education in Italy.

Keywords::

• Biodiversity informatics
• conservation
• database
• modelling
• natural history collection
• primary biodiversity data
• specimen