Invasive Species

A Task Group of the Darwin Core Maintenance Group

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Invasive Species Management Information Charter

A Task Group of Darwin Core Maintenance Group

Convenor

Lien Reyserhove, Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO)

Core Members

  • Scott Brown, USGS
  • Matthew Neilson, USGS
  • Nicole Hernandez, USGS
  • Quentin Groom, Meise Botanic Garden, Belgium
  • Kate Ingenloff, GBIF Secretariat
  • Yanina V. Sica, Justus Liebig University
  • Anahita (Ani) Kazem, iDiv
  • Andrew Turley, Atlas of Living Australia
  • Peter Brenton, CSIRO
  • Malin Strand, SLU Artdatabanken
  • Holger Dettki, SLU Artdatabanken
  • Mora Aronsson, SLU Artdatabanken
  • Olaf Booy, Non-Native Species Secretariat of the Animal and Plant Health
  • William K. Morris, GBIF
  • Jennifer Dean, New York Natural Heritage Program
  • Irene Martín-Forés, University of Adelaide
  • Haigen Xu, Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences
  • John Wieczorek, Rauthiflor LLC

Motivation

Over the past year, the importance of interoperable alien and invasive species data has gained significant recognition and has been the focus of different TDWG task groups. Improved interoperability of alien and invasive species data would greatly facilitate rapid data flows and information sharing, which is key in early detection and rapid eradication. This is particularly true for detections and classifications of alien and invasive species, but applies equally to all biota. Collection of data involving alien species includes a significant dynamic component: managers are actively manipulating the ecosystem in attempts to control the species, while the species is impacting the local ecosystem and subsequent ecosystem services. This interaction between management actions, alien and invasive species, and the native ecosystem present unique challenges for data representation.

Darwin Core Archives currently allow sharing of complex and structured data using the Event Core combined with three extensions: the Occurrence Extension, the Extended Measurement or Facts extension and the Humboldt Extension. However, the standard still does not capture the full complexity of alien and invasive species reporting, management, and sharing. Moreover, the diversity in management objectives and methods for different taxonomic groups make the standardization a real challenge. This task group aims to improve the Darwin Core standard to meet the needs of scientists, field managers and policymakers, in order to improve findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR) of reporting and management data.

Goals Outputs and Outcomes

The main goal **of this task group is to improve standardized exchange of management data between stakeholders. The **primary deliverable will be an extension to the Darwin Core standard, either as new terms, new vocabularies, a Darwin Core Archive extension, or a combination of those.

The primary deliverable will include:

  • A collection of use cases provided by partners of this task group, to cover data sharing needs of scientists, field managers and policy makers regarding alien and invasive species management and classification for a number of scenarios.
  • A review of how such information can currently be exchanged as a Darwin Core Archive, as well as its limitations.
  • A proposal on how to extend Darwin Core to share this type of information, including new or modification to current DwC terms, controlled vocabularies and/or a new extension. This includes:
    • Machine readable documentation:
      • In the case of new terms for Darwin Core: formal definitions of those terms following the Darwin Core Term proposal template.
      • In the case of new terms for an extension: formal definitions of those terms following the Vocabulary Maintenance Standard.
      • In the case of new vocabularies for terms: formal definitions of those vocabularies and their terms following the Vocabulary Maintenance Standard.
      • In the case of a Darwin Core extension, an XML document for that extension following the GBIF Darwin Core Extension schema (http://rs.gbif.org/schema/extension.xsd).
    • Human readable documentation, for example in the form of a Quick Reference Guide to the new terms and controlled vocabularies.
  • Publication of the use case/examples following the suggested terms, vocabularies and extension.

Strategy

The task group will be launched at the TDWG 2024 meeting in Okinawa, Japan. We will present several use cases focusing on alien and invasive species reporting and management in an organized session and we will reach out to gather more use cases. After the TDWG 2024 meeting, we will organize weekly meetings, with the first meeting of the month serving as a general update meeting. Communication will be conducted via email. Information on the group’s deliverables will be maintained on GitHub. Physical meetings will be held at the TDWG yearly meetings.

To achieve our goals, we will collaborate with the Darwin Core Maintenance Interest Group, the IAS management community to review the terms and vocabularies, and the GBIF staff to coordinate wider implementation and use.

Becoming Involved

This task group needs a variety of skills and knowledge related to:

  • alien and invasive species management actions and reporting
  • Darwin Core and machine readable vocabularies
  • data curation, publication and unification

Individuals interested in contributing to the task group should contact the convener and are invited to participate in the GitHub repository. To post a message to all member lists, please send an email to …. You can subscribe to the list here:

Summary

This group is being implemented to improve the Darwin Core standard in order to increase interoperability of alien and invasive species reporting and management data. Although Darwin Core Archives allow sharing of complex and structured data, they still do not capture the full complexity of alien and invasive species management reporting and sharing. The primary deliverable of this group will be an extension to the Darwin Core standard, either as new terms, new vocabularies, a Darwin Core Archive extension, or a combination of those. By making alien and invasive species data machine readable and interoperable, this task group will give an important push to the creation of rapid, reproducible data flows and rapid responses to biological invasion.

Resources