biology

Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Global Biodiversity Information Facility is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Global Biodiversity Information Facility rather than just read about it. In short: The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the world; GBIF's information architecture makes these data accessible and searchable through a single portal.

Global Biodiversity Information Facility — illustration

Key takeaways

Global Biodiversity Information Facility belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Global Biodiversity Information Facility to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Global Biodiversity Information Facility from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the world; GBIF's information architecture makes these data accessible and searchable through a single portal. Data available through the GBIF portal are primarily distribution data on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes for the world, and scientific names data. The mission of the GBIF is to facilitate free and open access to biodiversity data worldwide to underpin sustainable development. Priorities—with an emphasis on promoting participation and working through partners—include mobilising biodiversity data, developing protocols and standards to ensure scientific integrity and interoperability, building an informatics architecture to allow the interlinking of diverse data types from disparate sources, promoting capacity building and catalysing development of analytical tools for improved decision-making. GBIF strives to form informatics linkages among digital data resources from across the spectrum of biological organisation, from genes to ecosystems, and to connect these to issues important to science, society and sustainability by using georeferencing and GIS tools. It works in partnership with other international organisations such as the Catalogue of Life partnership, Biodiversity Information Standards, the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL), the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), and GEOSS. The biodiversity data available through the GBIF has increased by more than 1,150% in the past decade, partially due to the participation of citizen scientists. From 2002 to 2014, GBIF awarded a prestigious annual global award in the area of biodiversity informatics, the Ebbe Nielsen Prize, valued at €30,000. As of 2018, the GBIF Secretariat presents two annual prizes: the GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge and the Young Researchers Award.

See also ABCD Schema Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) Australasian Virtual Herbarium (AVH) Darwin Core Global biodiversity List of electronic Floras (for other online flora databases)

References

External links

Official website Short description of GBIF. Archived 2020-12-09 at the Wayback Machine. GBIF network. Archived 2020-12-16 at the Wayback Machine. GBIF Data publishers. Archived 2020-08-23 at the Wayback Machine.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Global Biodiversity Information Facility claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Global Biodiversity Information Facility before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Global Biodiversity Information Facility ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Global Biodiversity Information Facility

In research: Global Biodiversity Information Facility appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Global Biodiversity Information Facility in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Global Biodiversity Information Facility is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2001 establishments, Biodiversity, Biodiversity databases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Global Biodiversity Information Facility outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Global Biodiversity Information Facility” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Global Biodiversity Information Facility in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Global Biodiversity Information Facility means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Global Biodiversity Information Facility out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Global Biodiversity Information Facility in simple terms?

Why does Global Biodiversity Information Facility matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Global Biodiversity Information Facility?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Global Biodiversity Information Facility.