Poster 37: Be-BIF, a prototype national node of the Global Biodiversity

The fulfillment of the main goals of the Convention on Biodiversity (Rio, 1992) is difficult to achieve because of the low availability of the data and their extreme fragmentation. Belgium as a participant country of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GBIF (OECD Megascience Forum, 1996) has to promote the sharing of biodiversity data in GBIF under a common set of standards and form a node or nodes, accessible via GBIF, which will provide access to biodiversity data. At a meeting in 2000, initiated by the OCTC, the realisation at Belgian level of a joint information system, which could serve as a prototype for the GBIF system, was decided. This was the birth of the Be-BIF project assigned by the OSTC to the Belgian EMBnet Node (BEN), already in charge of the conception and maintenance of the biosequence and genomic databases and associated software (http://www.be.embnet.org).

The main goal is the construction of a prototype of a biodiversity information infrastructure, which could enable the management and exhibition of biodiversity data presently available in the Belgian scientific community. SRS, which is a highly flexible scalable platform for biological data, is foreseen as a tool to accomplish this task. SRS, which is already largely used in multiple scientific fields, enables powerful database interoperability, allows complex queries and guaranties total data integrity.

In a period of one year, we intend to build up a prototype, with a range of selected partners who already possess computerised biodiversity data in different fields (fauna, flora, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, etc.). Opportunity will be given to the partners to integrate their data into the prototype. Identified partners will receive adequate funding to implement the in-house conversion procedures to make their data available to the Be-BIF system. During the deployment phase the partners will be equipped with the adequate material to set up a local SRS computer interface. During the analysing phase the partners should provide assistance to the Be-BIF developing team in order to identify suitable data to be integrated to the system and develop the data model. During the implementation phase the partners are supposed to participate to the deployment of the integrated computer interfaces by providing all or part of their data in the format defined by the project. The partners can of course choose a limit of confidentiality regarding the data they wish to integrate into the Be-BIF system.

At the end of this project we will provide access to a distributed information system covering several aspects related to the biodiversity available in Belgium, possibly including Belgian collections about Central Africa. A well-structured and organised biodiversity server at the Belgian level will be of a great scientific interest and is essential to our participation in the GBIF program. The technology implemented in our system could serve as a model of an international Biodiversity server. Belgium would in this way show its real dedication to the GBIF program and acts as an active participant country of the whole project.

Already contacted potential Belgian partners:
BELNET BIODIV, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Universities, governmental institutions …

Interested by a participation to this project as a partner institution???
Do not hesitate to contact us, we will provide you with all further information!
Robert Herzog, rherzog@ulb.ac.be - Patricia Mergen, pmergen@ben.vub.ac.be