Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BioCHANGE (Biodiversity Change: an open access data resource supporting societal responses to the biodiversity crisis)
Reporting period: 2016-11-01 to 2018-04-30
Biodiversity CHANGE - a major, but still underappreciated, threat to humanity - arises when there is unprecedented turnover in the identities of species that comprise ecological assemblages. To understand, monitor and ameliorate this CHANGE, and to enable appropriate societal responses, policy makers and conservation managers urgently need access to the best possible data. Until now, the ability of practitioners to elucidate ecosystem responses to anthropogenic impacts has been hampered by the availability of time series of ecologically relevant assemblages, monitored using consistent methodologies. Building on ERC AdG BioTIME (250189), BioCHANGE (727440) has provided a proof of concept that existing fragmented data can be assembled into an open access, authoritative database to form a crucial resource for addressing societal challenges arising from the biodiversity crisis. The BioTIME database (http://biotime.st-andrews.ac.uk/(opens in new window)) is available to anyone, anywhere in the world, to use for research, education or conservation. The current version of BioTIME contains over 12 million records, features almost 50 thousand species, covers over 600 thousand distinct geographic locations and is representative of over 20 biomes, occurring over 6 different climatic zones. An accompanying data paper (Dornelas et al. 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12729(opens in new window)) describing the database increases the utility of the resource.