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1. 31 The next meeting is scheduled for A ugust SSTN Integration NBII also hosts the GBIF mirror so we queried the GBIF records for the 34 IABIN countries and we gave that data to IN Bio to begin populating the TNs These records may not be from a GBIF provider in IABIN countries it may be from a provider in Germany with data collected in an IABIN country So that data will be included in the GBIF mirror in the next couple of months Those records are potentially already going to appear in the SSTN and PTN It does not make sense for the SSTN to go and re harvest all of these data providers Is the PTN only going to have specimen records that you support through your content grants that have the relationship piece Antonio and Laurie No Pedro we may have specimen records that do not include the relationship section Mike Frame A re there any the specimen collections that would be in the pollinators TN guess they would bein SSTN Is there anything that the PTN needs out of this GBIF mirror that we need to subset somehow do not think there is because there is no relationship data there Antonio Then it comes back to the question of should we not serve data on SSTN just because it is for pollinator species Should we serve data other than from our grantees and will SSTN harvest data from our collections or the other way around Right now the grantees that were granted through SSTN but for some reason one of them applied to our
2. ITIS is taking all of itis TSNs and creating LSIDs for each of them So every item will have a unique ID Unique IDs are never reused Antonio Who will generate a species level relationship and based on what Who will generate species level information Liz So the relationship record needs to be tied to or associated with the specimen record s it came from Mike Ruggiero We are trying to nail down these bits of information where an insect had a specific type of interaction with a plant at a specific time and a specific place Is the situation where a relationship is associated with a specimen record and an observation record because only one of the organisms was collected supported Or one specimen might go to one collection and the other specimen might go to another collection Antonio M aybe we need to implement this discussion into the TDWG page and instead of being a Darwin Core extension it is a relationship schema 19 Mike Ruggiero Do you have a way to also handle a one to many relationship E g where a bumble bee visits 3 different species Pablo three records Carlos What happens when we have records of pollination visits on the specimen but no specimen of the plant W e do not have a GUID number for the plant specimen Antonio How do you build a GUID for that plant that was not collected Mike Ruggiero That s where you are getting into the difference between specimens and observations M onitoring prog
3. K robath Presentation Mike Ruggiero W e should freeze or standardize some of the taxonomic terms At least the upper hierarchies Carlos Can Experts choose to have only portions of their profile available to the public Liz No We discussed doing this but it was too difficult technologically Laurie How will experts know that they can choose for their information to be available to the public or kept private Liz That will be included in the instructions or manuals prepared for this tool Carlos W hy would an expert enter their information and then choose to keep it private Liz Some experts only wish to be contactable by other pollinator experts but not by members of the public Laurie Is there a page that experts can go to to register themselves Liz and Antonio No not right now We decided that people should not be able to register themselves because we will need to moderate their requests One of the political things we need to work out is where and how we will provide experts with an email or phone number that they can use to tell us that they want to be added to the database W e also need to work on who will receive and respond to these requests W e also need to decide on the criteria for evaluating experts perhaps ask them to provide us with the information about themselves that we would enter into the database as well as maybe some personal references to people that know them whom we can contact Laurie Con
4. and just provide some documentation for the latter group that probably will not require training Pablo Centralize the IABIN PTN portal server at an institution and then train or give a manual at each site We could also preinstall the software for each institution and then train the biologists so they do not have to worry about the installation process Angie She would be able to get access to an IT person Laurie As part of our RFP we could ask applicants to come to us with a team that includes an IT person and a biologist 23 Rita We are not getting many responses to our RFPs but maybe if we have a deadline of late September will get more responses For ETN we only have 2 responses and for invasive species we have 3 responses but in February we had 21 responses to one of our RFPs Laurie Can we talk about this to the people coming to this bee meeting Can we mention that it is coming then there may be people interested in looking for it We could ask them to also think about their contacts Rita We always send our requests to the IA BIN friends list and to our Focal Points with a request that they forward it on to their friends etc Let me work on it tonight and we could have something ready to distribute on W ednesday Antonio W hat about how to apply for a grant for the training Rita That is more difficult At the last IABIN Council meeting we decided that the way for them to carry out this training was for them to sele
5. Internet based information infrastructure for biodiversity For more information about IABIN as an organization visit our home page at www iabin net For more information about the Pollinators Thematic Network visit our home page at http pollinators iabin net The IABIN PTN makes data available that are shared by pollinator data providers within the W estern Hemisphere These data are shared according to the IA BIN Data Use A greement which includes the provision that users of any IABIN data will always give credit to the original providers Comments on Data Digitization Tool e Portuguese is misspelled on the Settings page e In Data Use Agreement include statement saying something like Please consult the data user agreement of the data owner in all instances e Changing the view to Portuguese does not translate text inside graphics or on the A bout page and the Home link at the top of the page W e need to create translated versions of these sections of text 14 Two options exist for exchanging relationship information Both are based on an extension to Darwin Core Should we exchange all of the specimen information in addition to the relationship information or should we only exchange the GUID s of each of the specimen records in addition to the relationship information Itis an extension to any schema that uses the GUID e g Plinian Core Darwin Core or ABCD DISCUSSION ON SECTION III Section III
6. RFP and it was not granted and now two of them applied for SSTN because we recommended that they do that and they were granted Laurie We are trying to make it easy for the user There are a lot of pollinator plant relationships that have not been described and we want the user to be searching only that universe But there was this difference in the content that did not really get straightened out Rita Really you should have a record of anything related to pollinator species even if it is also inthe SSTN As you Said you want people who look for pollinators to be able to find it at the PTN The discussion was mainly about how to allocate funding The PTN should be able to pull any pollinator information that SST N has Mike Frame If we need to go in to the GBIF mirror which will be very similar to what SSTN has and pull out a group of specimens bees etc and provide that to you that is not a big deal to do On the one hand agree with Laurie that people coming to the PTN will expect to find something about pollinators whether they are species or 32 specimens If there are some rules that we can build to do this the PTN can pull some data from GBIF and some from SSTN or visa versa J aime It seems to me that both databases should have the same content at the specimen level think it would be better for performance to have one database or a mirror of that database The difference will be that the PTN has the relationship
7. already have their own collection management applications or spreadsheets W e will have to deal with this heterogeneity W e cannot ask them to change the way that they are working Which is the tool that we want IABIN PTN providers to use One for specimen data and another for relationship data For specimen data we can suggest any collection management software especially if people are already using a tool We will need to install a DIGIR or TAPIR provider also referred to by Boris and in IABIN documents as the connector on top of that tool Since we were asked to choose one or suggest one we decided to work on Specify because it already has the capability of accommodating the connector on top of it But we know that it will only work for those who are willing to work with this software Relationship there was not another software application available that supported digitizing data and providing the data to our portal So those are two different aspects D atabasing Specify for collections and our tool for relationships and then Connecting Vera already works with us on the W ebB ee project So we asked IA BIN to allow us to change W ebB ee so that the database accepts and provides the data using the same protocols and to change the interface so that additional inputs can be done But that is specific for W ebB ee We plan to have a tool that anyone can download and use That is the tool that we are developing Section Il Monroy P
8. and University of California Riverside USA for digitizing bee specimen collections The IABIN PTN Data Portal and the Plant Pollinator Relationship Digitization and Standardization Tool were also introduced and will be discussed in more detail later Colony Collapse Disorder CCD National Academy of Sciences NAS National Research Council NRC 3 Global Biodiversity Information Facility GBIF Centro de Refer ncia em Informa o Ambiental CRIA Two classic texts have been digitized and made available on line at no charge in 2008 The Catalogue of Hymenoptera in America North of M exico is available online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library web site http www biodiversitylibrary org The database for this catalog has also been located and is being evaluated for inclusion in the PTN The Catalogue of Bees in the Neotropical Region is available on line at http moure cria org br catalogue Currently the PTN project is in the last year of the original grant There are still funds available for additional content grants training and data quality The discussions at this meeting will be critical to setting the PTN direction for the remaining year and beyond Antonio M auro Saraiva Universidade de S o Paulo Escola Polit cnica Brazil presented an overview of the information technology aspects of the PTN A summary of his presentation follows Architecture and Protocols The principal content that PTN is providing include
9. courses University of Sao Paulo is one option Panama and a Caribbean Island location are also options Perhaps courses can be taught in conjunction with other TN courses The PTN Consortium should work on content and course development teaching proposal planning development and other preparation procedures DISCUSSION ON SECTION IV Rita People may not need to be trained on the use of the tools because you have a very good manual Itis very difficult to ensure that the people that come to the training have the skills needed in order to understand the training It might be a good idea to hold the training by region and perhaps one in Spanish and one in English There are advantages to holding the training where the infrastructure is available to support the training and the logistics but it can be expensive to bring all of the students to that location On the other hand it may be cheaper to just send the trainer to multiple locations but then who will do the logistics and provide the infrastructure for the training Mike Ruggiero think we need to write down one more item the objectives of the training course after the student has finished this course they will be able to do what W hat is the minimum that we will want them to be able to do Certainly we want them to be able to enter data into the system to provide data We also want them to use the system for their advantage 21 Laurie have a question for Carlos and Angie h
10. funding is not in here but that is assumed at each of these levels We can include some costs in this table M ike had a really good point itis very difficult to sell information Google is doing this successfully but they have a business model that includes advertising sponsored links etc They are also manipulating all of their data into tools If pollinator or ecosystem services were mandated like carbon credits we could help facilitate that through the information that is needed to evaluate the value of the ecosystem service and the mitigation that would be needed that would be one 41 model There are agricultural planning schema that we could interface with but they are going to take a lot of money to do those sophisticated things In holding data we have power M aybe we can leverage that power DISCUSSION Rita That way that we have been operating is that we have 5 TNs that we have to continue supporting and maybe growing But it does not necessarily have to be like that it could be all centralized and managed by one organization not necessarily the Secretariat Mike Frame think you need to be very specific about sustaining the pollinator issues what would be the ideal model or PTN 1 What do we need IABIN 2 Why do weneed 5 networks 3 Whatis the PTN ideal model Leandro Can only governments give money or can anyone provide money Some companies could make donations in lieu of taxes Rita For that to
11. have one record for each of those 250 collections which will refer to one of the TNs Antonio Itis not only specimen data it is other data types too Mike Frame Y es Mike Ruggiero So if wanted to find all of the specimens for a particular bee species could do that through the catalog Mike Frame It would include a pointer record that would point to the pollinators portal Mike Ruggiero So could go in through the SSTN or the PTN portal and get the same results Antonio This should be something that has to be a decision from IABIN all of the TNs plus the Secretariat W e need to have the same policy for how to integrate each provider We should have all of our data providers registered in the SSTN portal the same for I3N Mike Ruggiero So at the specimen level all of the TNS are linked Rita M aybe just offer to the data provider that their data will be served through the IABIN Antonio W hen the user gets to a portal it would be better for them to have all of the information right there rather than having to go to different portals M ike Frame The catalog could do this if it had all of the specimen records in it but that s not its function Antonio The catalog can serve as a high level access point 34 J aime If search for a species name in the catalog the information could be on the SSTN orthe PTN the results will be the same but on different portals Laurie But what about this link acr
12. http iabin catalog nbii gov gt Live demonstration of IABIN catalog The catalog runs off Dublin Core metadata records for resources such as images T here is a relation field that we use to display image thumbnails We also display FGDC metadata records The catalog contains 40 000 records resource database There are 20 000 metadata datasets There are approximately 50 000 species profiles harvested from NatureServe and a database of 150 000 literature citations The IABIN catalog is made up of multiple sources of content W e are developing a way to access thematic network content The first time we discussed this we thought about referencing just the pollinator datasets rather than the individual specimen records DISCUSSION Laurie As a user how do know that there are these other thematic networks Mike Frame Y ou ll discover the individual records There will be that metadata record on the right that has a reference to the IA BIN thematic network for pollinators 25 Antonio This does not show the existence of each network It would be interesting to include something on that interface that links to and advertises the existence of the TNs Mike Frame We could include the IA BIN navigation in the interface too J aime Y ou could include a box that says something like Did you mean or Are you looking for the Pollinators Thematic Network Liz How is this interface going to be incorporated into the IA BIN
13. net web site Mike Frame There will be a link in the navigation and we will also pass out search scripts that say something like Find Ecosystems content in the catalog L aurie Y ou could have the top reference have an IABIN look to it or something Mike Frame Should you create a little metadata image of the sites Liz Do we have to go to the metadata record or can we just go directly to the resource Mike Frame The reviewers wanted to see the metadata record first But there may be Opportunities in the future to allow for sending the user directly to the resource or give them a choice to see the metadata record if they want to Mike Frame W e wrote some scripts that we could pass out to the different thematic networks and we are working with ecosystems right now Boris has included it on the main IABIN web site With these scripts we can predefine what results would show up think we have to be careful though about predefining and limiting what someone would search from this box If am on the pollinators site and have only limited the search box to pull back published literature for pollinators could potentially miss some records that I3N has provided that may be about invasive pollinators We use a collaboration area at my nbii gov and that is where this documentation is and where the members of the technical working group interact Year 2 There was talk of building an advanced search interface but we do not have any
14. plans to do that right now The thought was do we need the ability to search specific TN content from the catalog and if we do at what level Some people wanted to be able to download results from the catalog If you go to the pollinator or specimen portal you could perhaps download specimen records into a spreadsheet but this functionality does not make sense with the catalog which only contains metadata records We are going to incorporate the GeoM ancer web service so that users can do a bounding box or geographic type query We are going to do the same for scientific names using ITIS or the Catalogue of Life to expand the search based on the taxonomy 26 W e are building this terminology so that if someone types in a term or a phrase we create a relationship between that term and the same term in other languages Report from IABIN TWG Meeting J une 2008 Mike Frame Recommendations for PTN 1 Establish formal agreement with USP to support IABIN hosting and infrastructure needs Secretariat will evaluate the possibility of providing a decommissioned IA BIN server to USP 2 PTN will develop Dublin Core records for each collection being served through the PTN network One record per collection will be developed using the NBII Catalog tool Liz Mike can you work with Lisa to develop an example record for this that all of the TNs can use as a guide 3 PTN will upgrade the GBIF portal to the latest source code to include mod
15. the training funds 8 00 PM Dinner at the hotel Everyone eats together 9 30 PM PTN Team touch base Location TBA TUESDAY JULY 22 2008 Time Presenter Review the day Prepare for next day PTN network sustainability strategy decision If time integrating all our websites Activity Breakfast Technical Workshop Day 2 LDA Chairs 9 00 AM AS 10 00 AM LDA and discussion 12 00 PM Network Integration 5 year timeframe Report from Elizabeth Sellers integration possibilities Report from Mike Frame catalog Feedback PTN Network sustainability strategy Audience Tentatively Co Pls PTNs Rita Hosting just for PTN Institutional agreement Administration and agreements Budget How much are we aiming to accomplish and define sustainability at minimal medium maintain with changes and optimal levels maintain with changes and solicit and market for new users W hat supporting management do we need to keep TN going Lunch 1 30 PM LDA and discussion Funding 2 30 PM Government funding from US and Brazil OAS World Bank Private sponsorship International F unding between countries Framework7 Network providers Regional specific grants M arketing Interrelationship between other networks IABIN SSTN Invasive Species and global networks FAO Braulio and GBIF 57 3 30 PM MR 4 15 PM 4 45 PM 7 00 PM WEDNESDAY JULY 23 2008 Time Presenter 8 00 AM 10 AM CS RB JT 1 30 PM everyo
16. you have biologists doing this or IT people Vera Biologists with IT support Mike Frame So Carlos will you go back and potentially modify your data management systems to include these relationship items or will you use the tools that you saw to try to collect the relationship information Carlos might consider adding the fields into what we have now It is better for us to extend the current system to what you are requiring will talk to the two IT engineers about this Mike Frame That s the correct answer for sustainability This is part of their normal data management system Laurie We have two really distinct cases represented here Carlos already has lots of data Angie was figuring out what sources to look at to find data That s a really good thing for us to include in our training We cannot assume that they have that knowledge already a knowledge of where the data is and how to find it Antonio W hat is the objective of training Do we want to produce users or replicators to result from this training 22 L aurie We need both maybe data providers first and then users Liz Some users also can turn into very good trainers because they have excellent experience of implementing the tools on their own datasets Antonio It seemed to be that IN Bio had a very technical training but it seems to me that we should not take the same approach We should take the approach of training users but at a lower level Laurie
17. Association of Coffee Peru Bee Researchers gt Vera Plant Enthusiasts e g orchid societies Conservation Organization APACAME Association of A piculture A ssociation of A piculture in Peru Brazilian Oil Company Petrobras supporting many projects for advertising and for biofuels production Conservation Commons IUCN Country Committees USAID United Nations FAO National A ssociation of Science Teachers UC Davis ICE OAS Party Washington D C 6 8 pm part of the NA PPC Conference W e always serve only pollinated foods 3 minutes to communicate to this group 50 Digital posters Products displays from countries exotic M iniature flags Samples Give away bag Burt s bees samples Bee costume Lapel pins Orchard bee houses plans for how to make bee homes for boy scouts Computer terminals Products not just produce Honey tasting competition Big poster truck sized M ap showing vulnerability of agriculture to loss of pollinators Collection of posters on display Blow up of pollinator photos Special ribbon or lapel pin indicating a family or historic involvement in bee keeping Plasma TV showing high definition video of bees in action Raffle first price Get Batman to come Get Audubon to come Gary Allport Pollinator wheels and regional guides Big facts telling economic impact numbers Social impacts of bee keeping How do we encourage people to come H ave bee keeper
18. Carlos are you doing data entry Carlos Y es Our team is composed of two IT people am very close to the students typing or entering information checking for problems and working very closely with IT for solving problems Rita How difficult is it to install the connector If you are connector is easy to install then you will not need to train trainers as IN Bio had to Antonio At least some IT support is needed to install the system Laurie Angie do you have IT support helping you Angie No only biologists Antonio Probably at any university there must be someone that has some IT knowledge J aime The installation of DIGIR or TAPIR is easy for people from IT but the configuration of the schema and mapping the records is difficult Antonio n terms of installing the tool what we will change is only to include training about the digitization tool nothing about the portal or the experts database W hat might be done is the idea of having the data served through our server It will be complicated when people have a database of their own Mike Frame To me the priority is to get content into the TN So it sounds like you have some people that do not have any IT support and some people that can take that tool and set it up in their environment The third case is the group that already has a tool and needs training on how to serve that content to the network Y ou may need to have two separate trainings for the first two situations
19. IABIN Pollinators Thematic Network Training and Review 21 23 uly 2008 Ribeirao Preto SP Brazil FINAL REPORT November 2008 Editors Michael Ruggiero Elizabeth Sellers Laurie Adams and Antonio Saraiva Vi Vil CONTENTS Introduction Grant Presentations R eview of Tool Development Training Related Issues Sustainability Group Conclusions Annex 1 List of Participants Annex 2 Agenda 10 21 25 37 52 55 56 INTRODUCTION Vera mperatriz F onseca Brazilian Pollinators Initiative welcomed the workshop participants L aurie Adams IABIN PTN Consortium C oevolution Institute USA outlined the PTN vision the integration of information about pollinators that is easy and efficient to retrieve and gave a brief introduction about the status of pollinators in North A merica She described pollinator population declines and implications in the United States and in Europe and international pollinator initiatives occurring throughout the world She also discussed approaches for addressing the problem including research CCD Study Group private industry support Burt s Bees Haagen Daz advocacy U S Farm Bill built in incentives for farmers and ranchers to work on pollinator issues presentations before UN meetings habitat guides ecoregional free downloadable outreach US Postal Service pollination stamps scientific information NAS NRC Study pollinator plant wheel and data making da
20. Pollinator A ssessment 52 PTN needs anew name Pollinator Information Network of the A mericas for marketing purposes and a marketing strategy like NAPPC e PTN needs to determine its appropriate sustainability level commensurate with support Tools and IT Group Report We were looking at the details of fusing Specify 5 or 6 for databasing our information We found with solutions for certain situations but one that would like to point out is that we as a provider have many specimens with the label saying collected in rose or sunflower or honeysuckle any common name of the plant How are we going to connect that with a scientific name In some cases it might be possible link back to a single scientific name but in several species that common name might refer to species in 3 different families and that is not going to fit in certain systems So are we going to lose all of that information How do we deal with that information Mike Frame think it has to be collected and captured up front because we definitely do not want to lose that Carlos We have the best dictionary for common names but specify requires a taxonomic tree that links every name to a single taxon But it cannot handle linkage of a common name to multiple families for example Leandro The DIGIR what fields do they need to provide this information if they need a field that is blank Carlos Every record requires taxonomic information Mike Rugg
21. TN and other GBIF providers We might also have a central database where we could host data from small collections that might not be able to have their own providers We are working on customizing the GBIF tool to our needs V ery important to our network is the plant pollinator relationship data This is what differentiates us from the other networks It is key information related to pollinators We have started work on a schema that would allow us to exchange this data W e examined other schemas to see how this could be done We reviewed Plinian Core which was being developed by INBio but at the time the relationship field was not a structured field it was a gt TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval TAPIR standard Distributed Generic Information Retrieval DiGIR protocol text field and was being designed to deal with species or observation data We were more concerned about collection data So the decision was made to extend Darwin Core to work with specimen data As part of our activities we are working on setting up W ebBee as one of the first providers of relationship data to IA BIN Vera Fonseca has received a grant from IA BIN to enable relationship data Etienne is working on changing W ebB ee so that it can support structured plant pollinator relationship data and exchange the data with the portal E xperts Database There were very few options at the time but we were given some PHP code from the A quatic Nuisance S
22. ailure but there is only a core set of people that are interested so the community is small to start with and some of the quality assurance control processes were not there Is your model too costly to maintain K eys to Sustainability Core or inherent activities in an organization are more likely to be sustained For example invasive species is a priority research area of USGS so our support to the I3N network is likely to continue Activities that benefit an organization for participating will help support continued involvement Reliance on a single funding source is not a good approach Sustainability Issues Funding sources Current work plans Collaboration with other TNs Secretariat support and involvement Role of other global organizations GBIF CHM etc Sponsorship for IABIN as an Inter A merican Committee of OAS or as a 501 C3 IA BIN Sustainability Goal To be a self sustaining distributed network which provides open access to high quality relevant information on biodiversity in the A mericas providing that information in a timely manner to user throughout the public and private sector in the Americas and to other interested parties worldwide Sources of recurring funding what would this support e g council meetings training activities and communication secretariat staff salaries 18 Clearing House M echanism CHM 38 Sustained internal funding for IABIN participating countries need to be a
23. at we are working on and they have agreed to take it on and continue it in case the Secretariat does not continue have been talking to someone from Fundacion Boticario about integrating the protected areas TN into the Fundacion Boticario IN Bio has already told us that they cannot sustain the SSTN if they do not have funding They have not given us any funding ideas If there is no funding provided from IABIN directly INBio is an NGO so they already have their own national network that they have to maintain If IABIN does not continue as its own organization then all we are really is a project of the OAS we do not have any legal status so if we want to continue as an organization we have to become a commission of the OAS GBIF may be also interested in funding a node for the A mericas and we may need that to sustain SSTN The idea is mainly that each of the CIs could continue to take the TN and manage it as part of their regular activities That was the main idea behind setting up a consortium in the first place because it is easier for consortiums to obtain funding 39 Laurie Management is different from fundraising There is still another component that the Cls need to take on So INBio is saying that they will continue with the management if someone else funds it Mike Ruggiero Y ou are taking a primarily government project and your turning it over to NGOs Governments do some things well and NGOs do other things well In the US the Gove
24. aurie think we should not even announce the global part but work behind the scenes on the regional part Mike Frame If the PTN gets more specimen records in before the SSTN does that can be a good thing Laurie SSTN was saying that they were going to be the administrative interface with GBIF too Weare talking about 6 right now how to consider politics in different countries Mike Ruggiero W e really need to go after some of the important regions like the W est Indies Rita The world bank has given us permission to go after specific data providers Laurie and Mike Ruggiero W e should to the map and identify the hot spots data providers Mike Frame Regarding the issue with the Focal Points think you have to keep them aware Do not let that structure limit what you can do Why do we need IABIN 47 Mike Ruggiero If we do not have IA BIN then we need something like it for the political umbrella or governmental structure M ost countries including the U S will not participate if you do not have that support If we have a strong secretariat that can help with the outreach and the training etc that would be good General activities could be centralized Mike Frame t depends on the structure in terms of the TNs and their focus but that umbrella helps coordinate complementary activities across those think the 2 why do we need 5 networks do not think that really matters and we probably do not really need t
25. been approved through IABIN to be part of GBIF Anything that CRIA wants to provide is covered by this Antonio Does CRIA have to serve the data through IABIN or can it go directly to GBIF Rita It depends on the type of data At the time that they requested this 1A BIN was not ready to serve data but now think it is going to be required that it goes through IABIN Laurie Do the content grantees understand this connection Rita Y es they do and they have a choice as to whether they want to serve their data to GBIF or not 28 Mike Frame This issue came up in Tennessee and Boris noted that we need to ask people whether they have a problem with serving data through IA BIN and to GBIF Laurie We are going to have to make sure that as we go forward that we are clear about that to our data providers Mike Frame If CRIA is serving data to GBIF is it the same data that are in the pollinator portal Pedro W hat about the agreement with GBIF The agreement is to serve data not to host the mirror from GBIF do we need an agreement to do this or to establish a mirror Rita Y ou have to apply to GBIF in order to become a mirror site Now that IABIN is a regional node of GBIF data providers in the A mericas need the approval of the regional node GBIF has not been having a lot of success here because IABIN is free and GBIF is not CRIA can only serve the data that the providers approved to be served in GBIF They have to provide ap
26. but at species sightings That is going to be really important for the users and decision makers that are going to be using this network Mike Frame That type of function will be built at the TN level The IABIN geospatial technology will be set up at a very high level Antonio GBIF is already working on an integrating you can already use the tool for modeling distribution based on the specimen records and build scenarios based on other layers Up until now it has had very limited integration but they are working on improving it Laurie K ansas has some good modeling software Mike Ruggiero That s where it is from Antonio It is being developed by CRIA now Mike Ruggiero But K ansas was working with CRIA too Antonio It integrates with some data like GA RP for example Mike Frame With Open M odeler the basic portal code that we are using is providing that wervic3 but Laurie has maybe identified some other services and functions that might be needed across IA BIN and could be included in the package The O pen M odeler piece just came out in M ay with the new GBIF portal code Pedro We are working with CRIA on this project The server will be hosted at USP Mike Frame So from that aspect you guys may be able to be further along Mike Frame IA BIN is using a couple of universities to provide infrastructure and we have discussed some potential activities that could happen between the universities Univ of Tennessee and USP
27. ct a champion from each country a trainer that would receive training The people who were trained then have to end in a proposal explaining how many people they plan to train where they are going to have it and a budget Then OA S requires three different quotes for their logistical expenses W e decided to allocate the funds according to the size of the country W hat we do first is send invitations to the Focal Points asking them to nominate someone from their country to take the training Antonio M y experience is that the Focal Points are not the best people to be the Focal Points when it comes to awareness of this technical expertise Rita W hat we did was we allowed Focal Points to designate someone from an NGO If you can come up with any creative way to do this it will be considered do not think the Focal Points would be against your ideas Antonio How should we proceed in order to be able to give training on the SSTN tools Liz Regarding the training think it would be good to also include a small portion in the training covering what a specimen is what a species record is what a species relationship is what a plant pollinator relationship is J ust some very basic biology and ecology is needed to make sure that even the biologists know what we mean when we use these terms during the training Rita First you have to have the tools the training module and the training tools ready describe how you will carry out
28. cture of IA BIN Rita We are tied because each government designates who the Focal Points In some countries e g V enezuela we have started to work sideways with NGOs and Universities but we always need the blessing of the M inistry of the Environment and they can stop things So we really need to have them on board The M inister of the Environment in Brazil we have been able to get them to make their main tool for protected areas available it is their main catalog for protected areas W e think they will be more cooperative over the coming years Braulio is very busy but he has designated somebody as an alternate Carlos How do we make ourselves reachable or visible to funders and users Sometimes people do not really know about these tools and services Rita The question that A ntonio had was how can we get the Focal Points more involved Antonio There are funding rounds for research but that only relates to research mainly in Brazil Maybe we could find a way to try to coordinate funding from different countries and sources There are agreements between some of the funding institutions to fund not only research but development of tools Mike Frame W orking with the EU it is difficult to coordinate funding cycles and proposal cycles Antonio There is a program or initiative called WINDS It means Research for the Environment in Europe and the A mericas They had a meeting last week and suggested to them the topic of biod
29. d in the bee wasp and ant recording society would those be people you would leave off the list If you associate an affiliation or organization with these people then that can be part of the criteria for evaluating people Carlos If someone is invited and the system says no that would not be good Liz Is there a situation where we would invite people and then choose not to include them L aurie Antonio Possibly we are about to invite around 300 people from the Brazil meeting Mike Ruggiero M aybe we need to review terminology expert versus source It means different things to different people If it is for communication there are a lot of people that do not consider themselves experts but they may have money that they want to give to pollinators M aybe there could be some categories in the database e g contributors supporters rather than just experts There are also interested people Vera Some experts are coming to the bee meeting and we can consult them about this issue Send post workshop comments on the Expert Database to Diogo K robath his email information is in the participants list Angie W e need to add Entomology to the disciplines list Liz Add invasive species to the disciplines list Liz ls this URL temporary Are we going to change it to something like lt http pollinators iabin net experts gt or something when we are ready to make it public 16 Additional Comments on E xper
30. data but the SSTN will have the species profiles Mike Ruggiero Going back to the origin of these thematic networks PTN was one of the original ones and the idea was to get at the priority issues first so you do have that overlap It seems to me that you can handle that with the GUIDs to avoid duplication of specimen records It is just giving priority to the development of data for pollinators Mike Frame We really need to define the scope of these TNs Laurie see this as a venn diagram where each TN has information and there is overlap between the 3 Someone coming into the TNs have different users come in from different places looking for issue based solutions Within our content we have more than just specimen records more than what would be found at the SSTN for example the big piece would be the relationships Mike Ruggiero W hat would prevent SSTN from harvesting that If you are going to provide a species account then you could harvest that relationship data Antonio think at some point in the future the SSTN profiles could include the relationship information Mike Ruggiero The SSTN may be more at a survey level They have a broad perspective But if you know that you are looking for pollinator information you would probably come in through the PTN Liz There may be a two way exchange of species profiles and components relationship data between the SSTN and I3N and the PTN Mike Frame see some unique aspect
31. do that the data is available to do that Antonio A nother argument is how global change will affect pollinators Mike Ruggiero The interesting thing is that the nitrogen deposition is causing the loss of legumes and their associated pollinators as well N deposition is so high alpine habitats are becoming N rich Mike Frame So the question is can you do some kind of a demonstration by October Laurie Our real goal is to solve problems and we can make a good case for how vital these things are and we really need to make the case for keeping track of this and of the data for long term analysis and monitoring The NSF study also recommended long term monitoring We need to tie the two together the tool that we are creating and the importance of data with the importance of pollinators to agriculture etc 45 Mike Frame Y ou should ask for all of the money you want so that we can maintain the network at level 5 W hat people do you need to carry out Level 5 sustainability Administrative people regional lead s lead technical person 2 3 grads to work on things fundraising outreach and training content grants system help desk infrastructure of the network servers etc science expert advisor scientific advisory board committee or board or a mix of experts that serves as an advisory group at a high level Mike Ruggiero That is sort of the way you deal with NAPPC Administrative structure 3 or 4 people that on a daily basi
32. e and she wants to be listed as the person that is providing the data Laurie Where will that appear 35 Carlos On our web page we list the collection name to keep it clear to the user that a record is from a specific collection Antonio W hen we create metadata for that source there is an element that allows us to link it back to the source Angie If found information in a museum we credit the museum Laurie Carlos on your slides you had funding from a variety of sources Antonio B ut at our network we might not see all of those supporters listed J aime In the metadata you could list the data provider and then include a statement about who funded the data collection digitization etc Mike Frame It is important to provide metadata for collection providers and funders should work with Liz Laurie J ennifer and M ike to figure out what content in the catalog can be included on the PTN Web site We could include an RSS reader on the PTN site to display resources from the catalog W e have a published literature database that we could replicate to PTN The other thing we are going to do is create some sample metadata records we are also translating the NBII thesaurus There are about 15 000 terms that will help improve retrieval This will be a service where if you have your own databases that are indexed with keywords you could use this thesaurus to look up and expand your results Liz Will the multilingual versi
33. e schema The portal and the providers need to exchange Darwin Core with extended Darwin Core W e need the relationship information but also the single information Providers will need to remap the fields 13 e UseGUID based schema Create an additional harvesting process to ID and work only with relationship information Providers will continue to use Darwin Core to collect singular information about specimens Use a specific schema to exchange only the relationship information Pablo went on to outline the pros and cons of each of these options The first option would be more work for the providers Paulo provided a demonstration of the PTN Portal search capability W e need to review and improve the text on the A bout page of the Portal About A bout this website W elcome to the Data Portal of the Pollinators Thematic Network PTN from Inter A merican Biodiversity Information Network IABIN For an introduction to the capabilities of the Portal see the online tutorial The Pollinators Thematic Network is a Consortium led by the Pollinator Partnership USA The members of the consortium are Pollinator Partnership USA University of Sao Paulo Brazil Centro de Referencia em Informaio A mbiental CRIA Brazil National Biological Information Infrastructure NBII USA IABIN PTN and its many partners work to mobilize the data and to improve search mechanisms data and metadata standards web services and the other components of an
34. eirao Preto 4 hours check in around 3 30 PM Will stop somewhere for lunch bathroom break 7 30 PM IABIN PTN team Dinner in the hotel 9 00 PM Everyone M eet and greet in hotel lobby MONDAY J ULY 21 2008 Time Presenter Activity Breakfast Hotel dining room Technical Workshop Day 1 LDA will Chair 9 00 AM LDA Introductions 15 min Overview of objectives and agenda LDA 15 min Short PTN progress overview MR general AS technical 30 min 10 00 AM AS PC Demonstration and review Part 1 30 min 20 min Break Digitization tool http groselha pcs usp br sowb Experts Database http groselha pcs usp br experts search php Data Access Portal http iabinptn pcs usp br IABIN PTN website ES maintains http pollinators iabin net 11 00 AM AS PC F eedback on network tools M ajor portion of the morning devoted to demo feedback 90 min Time allotted for participant s feedback Ask participants for language help like Spanish ES will take notes and also pass out a feedback follow up for participants to fill out 12 30 PM Lunch 2 00 5 00 PM AS Develop curriculum and outline for training courses Bring user survey results with us 56 Should be extremely simple how to input data not the architecture how to retrieve data how to update data portal as a user not as a developer M ain objective is to have one portal and many contributors AS USP team will develop a simple outline K eeping in mind
35. eling tracking and other features Antonio think we should try to coordinate with GBIF in terms of being more in contact with their implementing team so that we are not caught by surprise when a new version is released Mike Frame Tim and are writing this paper that NBII and IABIN are going to work together on it is very IT oriented We had said that it would be great to get all of these people using the portal together in a workshop for 3 days do think we will try to push GBIF to get together and hold some kind of workshop where everybody that s using the portal can get together When it was first written they did not intend for it to be adopted everywhere so the architecture didn t necessarily take that into account U pdates need to be scheduled and more systematic Antonio IABIN is probably the biggest use of GB IF s portal so it would be good if we had more of an agreement or a memorandum of understanding Mike Ruggiero But IABIN does have an MOU with GBIF Mike Frame IA BIN is very dependent and what if GBIF decides they do not want to use that portal any more What does that mean for the IABIN groups that are using it If the interaction was more formal that might be better Gladys is trying to draft something to make the relationship a little bit more formal Mike Ruggiero This should also be pushed at the governing board meeting 21 Mike Frame GBIF is talking about having regional node meetings now too We may
36. er to each of these organizations And you would have to provide a seal that has some sort of a brand Laurie We are doing this the Pollinator Partnership has a brand We have called it Cause M arketing Y ou want to make sure that you are doing it with their marketing department rather than their philanthropy department The marketing side has money and you want to get their logo on your poster on your web site so that s when we say what can you actually offer to them It has worked for us more when their product does have a relationship with pollinators Even for example we are talking to a tire company now that is interested in a project that makes road corridors more pollinator friendly They are interested in how this will help them sell more products Mike Ruggiero Everybody now in the US is fighting to be green Laurie The other down side is when they give money they usually want to give it for a specific project that has their name on it they mostly want to do research e g to solve the bee crisis But we could easily call it the M obil Oil Pollinator A ssessment Mike Ruggiero R esearch on pollinators for sunflowers and canola could get funding from energy companies Laurie Even that project that Dieter was talking about bees that can carry oil study their bodies and apply that design to a textile that would soak up oil spills biomimetics the application of biological methods and systems found in na
37. ersidade de S o Paulo Escola Polit cnica Brazil This tool is used mainly by end users allowing them to visualize information from the data providers It brings all of the information together Objectives e Centralize information of different providers around the globe e Search for occurrences scientific name countries relationships etc bold indicates PTN not bold is GBIF version e Getand store relationship information e Positioning occurrences on the map e Interactive exhibition of occurrence relationship e Personalized layout Problems and Solutions e High demand for information e Information not only available from one source e This problem has already been solved by GBIF with centralized portals Features e Information exchange between providers and the portal o Extended Darwin Core schema o GUID based schema e Implementation o Providers o Centralized portals e Personalized layout and exhibition of relationship information Architecture Information Exchange Data providers store their data in various formats so the providers have a protocol that can communicate with their database and get the information to the portal The protocol is basically DIGIR and TAPIR The protocol only gets information from one side to the other side The data provider uses a protocol and the schema that the portal also uses Problem Share relationships information to centralized portals Solution e Useextended Darwin Cor
38. happen the CI would have to be a 501 C 3 Laurie Weare A donating company does need to know what they are going to get what are we offering Mike Frame His point is that today there is not much private sector or commercial contribution to this project Antonio B ut what the companies can get may not be just economic revenue Leandro Instead of paying to the government in taxes they pay to an organization in donations L aurie They could get a product that leads to sales good will and social corporate environmental responsibility they only do it if it leads to sales When I go to beer companies and say that they are going to get a lot of good will for supporting pollinators they say that their beer drinkers do not care about bees or butterflies Rita The food price crisis that is happening right now pollinators are very related to production so we should try to find a connection there How can we leverage food prices Angie The politics is important also different politics in different countries They are not the same or apply the same importance to this topic Mike Frame That s also an educational piece as to why this is important 42 Antonio The problem is for instance the Focal Point for Brazil is the minister of the environment they have not been present in any of those meetings In terms of effective support or participation it does not work How tied to the Focal Points are we in terms of the current stru
39. he level that PTN needs Antonio W e talked with Jim Beach and after that we came up with the possibility of customizing Version 5 of Specify But he says that the next version will allow you to have different collections inside the same installation of Specify And you will be able to relate specimens from those different collections but we are not sure how they will relate Specify requires the taxonomic tree in order to be able to retrieve data How will that affect data exchange between it and the PTN tool Section III Salvanho Lopez Presentation Mike Frame We should highlight the relationship data more on the home page Mike Frame IABIN should use that same approach the GUIDs ensure that the institution code is unique and the IABIN needs to have a registry in order to know that the data providers and their GUIDs exist to access information from 13N and SSTN and PTN Carlos do not understand why you are talking about Plinian Core and the Institution code because Plinian Core is only for species data not specimens Mike Frame In the SSTN network on the species side they are creating species profiles high level information there is a relationship between that and the specimen records located throughout IA BIN Carlos Everyone who is using Specify should have a GUID Mike Frame M aybe in the next month at the IA BIN Technical Working Group meeting still think there has to be a service that advertises these GUIDs
40. host one in Reston in D C so something like this would be on the agenda for that meeting 4 PTN will register with SSTN and GBIF all PTN specimen providers Coordination with SSTN and GBIF related to harvesting and replication will occur There are still some providers of specimen data who do not want that data shared with GBIF But this last item was trying to capture the situation where if there are any specimen collections within pollinators they would also be registered with SSTN This goes back to some of the talk yesterday with regard to the pollinator value added product which is the relationship data But when someone comes to the PTN they are expecting to find all specimens that are considered to be pollinators So there is some work to be done there to figure out how to do that Rita IABIN is the regional node for GBIF The Secretariat has to give their blessing for each one of the organizations that want to serve data to GBIF through IABIN Mike Frame So any blessing you give you have to make sure that it gets into SSTN Mike Frame GBIF is still asking the Secretariat for this even if someone from the A mericas wants to serve data to GBIF directly The data provider still has to acknowledge the country specific node to GBIF to ensure coordination Rita Brazil as a country does not want to belong to GBIF so any organization in Brazil has to go through IABIN Antonio CRIA is one of the organizations Rita Y es CRIA has
41. ibliographic survey of articles dissertations and theses pollen analysis studies etc This included 82 A poidea surveys most near Universities and most lasting more than one year 71 Also 9 84 genera and 14 259 species were found in each locality 11 Surveys lasted less than one year The data will be available through the PTN architecture The African Pollinator Initiative is interested is using W ebBee to include their data as well and have asked to use the same framework Carlos E duardo Sarmiento M onroy Universidad Nacional de C olombia Instituto de Ciencias Naturales C olombia The diversity in Colombia is very large due to three mountain ranges The Instituto de Ciencias Naturales ICN at Universidad Nacional de Colombia has the goals of documenting Colombia s biodiversity and understanding its causes and providing tools for sustainable management The ICN collection currently has 900 000 specimens mostly plants but the insect collection includes approximately 200 000 specimens The entomology collection started in 1940 along with the ornithological collection A goal is to keep growing the collections and making them available to the public We have 241 700 specimen records on the web mostly from the botanical collection We provide a catalog of common names strongly related to scientific names of plants It is almost finished Y ou can consult the database by genus species type of collection etc We have multiple bioinforma
42. iero Is there a dummy taxon that you could use Do they allow that Antonio It could be used or included in a comment field Y ou have to match that with the schema and the schema only relates specimens right now Mike Frame Why not send this issue to the Specify people and see what they say J aime W e need to define an association between a species with one taxonomy and another species with a different taxonomy Liz So the question really is the same as the one that Carlos asked yesterday does Specify support a one to many relationship for when we cannot narrow down the plant species any further than 2 or 3 genera Carlos will write this up and send it to the Specify developers in K ansas 53 Peru Database R eview Group Report Angie showed Etienne the database that we have in Peru the database and the software asked about the possibility of working with this software and then all of the records could be included in the portal He is going to talk with Mike Ruggiero to verify that this would be possible There are many articles that have that are on paper but not digital do not know how to show this in the portal We need to provide them as a PDF but we do not have permission to do that right now There are records in our Dublin Core catalog that just cite the reference and include alink but not the actual document We could modify the tool to accommodate data entry for species associations sourced from reference
43. input from Barbara Herren who forwarded an email from a person from New Zealand that is involved in the Oceania Pollinator Initiative and she argued that we should leave it open and not tied to specific words Mike Ruggiero If the end use of the data is to be able to put it into analysis then we need to have a well defined controlled language and then provide an other field to accommodate additional terms Liz We also cannot assume a dependency from relationship data and it is important that we recognize that too Mike Ruggiero The catalog of life should be consulted about this too Section III Najm Presentation Carlos So this new version will address all of the limitations Leandro Y es William U late tells me that the next version will address these limitations including relationships Carlos How is it different to the tool that we saw earlier Leandro The difference is that one you can carry with you into the field but the other you need access to the internet Y ou can also use Specify to manage your collection Carlos Will you be able to exchange information between Specify and the PTN tool Mike Frame Specify has an embedded provider so they should be able to exchange data at that level GBIF is pushing some of this Specify development for the next version of TAPIR and DIGIR to 18 imbed it right in that collection management If that tool really is going to manage relationships but maybe not at t
44. is in Lima and the major collections are at the Natural History Museum UNM SM 7 URP and the Entomology M useum of UNALM W e are still working on the development of a database that will contain information about pollinator species Morphological characters function in the ecosystem names of plants associated etc Activities include a 1 workshop in Lima central coast in A ugust a 2 workshop in Chiclayo north coast and a 3 workshop in Iquitos forest Current products include 85 articles from magazines 16 theses 15 on species and 1 on birds 60 congress events and 10 others There are very few theses available on pollinators Investigations focus on insects 253 followed by birds and mammals The database allows entry of new pollinator and plant records ambient environmental conditions evidence of pollination Future actions include completion of the project and finalization of the database and participation in the Entomology National Congress in Tacna Peru in November Consejo Nacional del Ambiente CONAM 10 Universidad Nacional M ayor de San Marcos UNM SM 11 Universidad Ricardo Palma URP 12 Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina UNALM DISCUSSIONS ON SECTION II Section Il Fonseca Presentation Rita Specify is the tool that will be used to manage specimen collections but is there another tool that will compliment Specify for accommodating interaction data Antonio M any potential providers
45. iva Universidade de Sao Paulo Escola Polit cnica Brazil Five presentations Experts Database Diogo K robath Darwin Core Extensions and PTN Data entry tool Etienne Cartolano Specify customized data entry tool Leandro Halle Najm PTN Portal Pablo Salvanha and Paulo V enancio Lopez PTN Web site Elizabeth Sellers E xperts Database Diogo Krobath Universidade de S o Paulo Escola Polit cnica Brazil The Experts Database helps communication and collaboration and facilitates access to information on pollinator experts The database also allows searching and editing insertion edit delete of experts information It was developed using MySQL PHP and Apache Web Service The original code donated by the A quatic Nuisance Species Task Force of the United States Search criteria include common names scientific names geographic location and area of expertise R esults include expert personal information taxonomic expertise geographic location and expertise such as discipline taxonomic and geographic scope of their expertise Experts are divided into two access levels publicly accessible or hidden from the public There are 4 types of users expert user administrator and two others An expert can edit add and delete taxonomic items A live on line demonstration of the Experts Database was provided Darwin Core E xtensions Etienne Cartolano Universidade de S o Paulo E scola Polit cnica Brazil The schema is inte
46. iversity as a possible topic to discuss and names of other institutions that might be involved think that if we propose this kind of project building a network and integrating initiatives like IA BIN and the EU initiative or linking more closely to GBIF that might be something that might be considered for a project Pedro W hat are the gaps in the research L aurie Then we could propose a research project that would address that gap Sustainability Discussion The Global Pollinator Species Campaign will receive no additional funding from GBIF after this year So that campaign is facing the same questions about sustainability W hat 43 is the really big picture From the management of information standpoint we need to do a Global Pollination Assessment similar to the Global Amphibian Assessment or the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment So we are going to transition from the campaign concept name to an assessment We will need alot of money to do it from foundations governments and other support Tied to biodiversity and agriculture produces outlooks at various scales reports status and trends monetizes ecosystem services manages information on a global regional and local basis distributed portal structure responds to international directives e g of the 2010 Target stimulates research and innovation supports capacity building and poverty alleviation Related to bee information we need more resea
47. lso need standards for habitats There is a Colombian Pollinators Initiative The leader works for the agricultural department Angie Romy Burgos Bastidas Red de Accion en Agricultura Alternativa RAAA Peru Important agricultural products of Peru include cotton rice corn and potatoes In the forested areas there are also citrus crops The agricultural production and diversity of agro ecosystems are threatened by loss of pollinators Peru is a Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity and one of 139 countries involved in the International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainability of Pollinators The Action in Alternative A griculture Network RAAA is a decentralized national network for training and research on environmental sustainability CONA M is the Environment National Council that works as a Focal Point in this project The Project of Pollinators of Peru was presented last year to IABIN and we began executing the project in December 2007 In developing the first database of pollinators in Peru the principal approach was to search bibliographic resources and contact people involved in pollinator research The five step methodology included looking for bibliographies looking for workshops evaluating samples in museums conducting interviews and surveys and reviewing databases We also searched theses from 31 universities and 50 faculties biology agricultural engineer and forest engineer The principal university
48. ne else Review draft report outline of workshop Discussion of OAS reception Suggestions for people to invite W hat we want to push at the reception Conclusions Dinner in town not hotel AS will make a restaurant reservation for Tuesday night We will take taxis Activity Bee Research M eeting MR will be presenting to the Bee M eeting in the afternoon Participants depart via van or can continue on and join the Brazilian B ee Research M eeting http rge fmrp usp br abelhudo at their own expense Sat 10 pollinator celebration Taxi to GRU M eet in hotel lobby Transportation Ribeirao Preto to GRU Airport M eet in hotel lobby to board the scheduled van 58
49. ng because the PTN should be useful to Governments Sustainability Presentation Mike Frame USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure USA Different aspects of sustainability e Technical sustainability e Economic sustainability e Partner expertise resources capabilities Economic Sustainability A pproaches e Institution contributions Project driven model Endowments Fee for service model Conference fees Creation of a 501 C3 Technical approach leads to lower costs DataN etONE M embership M odel pyramid additional services occur as you move up the pyramid If an organization or an agency needed a particular service or tool at that level then they might provide funding for such a tool Technical Sustainability A pproaches e Distributed architecture it is harder to sustain infrastructure if it is centralized e Working groups and user centered design approach e Adoption and participation in standards e Open source development and archival solutions 37 e Identifying base level functions of IABIN all of TNs are going to have to identify which tools really need to be maintained W hat needs to continue W hat can be maintained with the current funding E ducate stakeholders about best practices Development of quality assurance control protocols and standards M etadata repositories Commercial service providers W ikipedia model the community helps maintain content The European thesaurus project has been a f
50. nto a MySQL database which is not local Antonio If you do not have database capabilities then you could use a database that we could host And you could connect to it remotely Mike Frame In the US some really small museums use shared storage space This works well Etienne If we have the database we can also assess the data for quality Antonio we probably need a more automated way to do that 17 Mike Frame Y ou could use GeoM ancer to go back in and georeference and validate some of these place names It has a web service that you can use We are going to try to use it for the catalog project for place names Carlos include instructions on the interface that explain to the user how to enter data into the fields in a standard way Include examples of how something should be typed Liz include linkage to the instruction manual in the interface hyperlinks Antonio which schema for relationship should we adopt There are different pros and cons we could define the two GUIs and the relationship as the true extension Antonio W hat technology are we going to use for characterizing the relationship W e have used pollination itis hard to tell whether something pollinates A better term to use is visit We started a survey to collect terms that researchers use to define interactions so that we could develop a standard vocabulary Or should we just leave that field open Antonio W e have received
51. o as long as it is available to the public it really does not matter which network itis available through It is really more of an administrative thing that things should go through IABIN M ost of the countries cannot even afford the 500 that it costs to go through GBIF Discussion description of IABIN hosting options for the future e g USP Univ of Tennessee etc Mike Frame USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure USA J aime INBio is hosting the SSTN portal and database on 2 servers The Secretariat had issues with basic access and the web site was down a lot so connectivity and basic infrastructure support was an issue Mike Frame IABIN developed a geo integrator a few years ago a little bit before the TNs were really up and running Several servers were installed primarily in Central America Training was given and they created various thematic layers and used open GIS to serve this There was a portal developed for the geo integrator but the code itself was running on the servers in Panama and there were some issues with the servers W e really do not have any geospatial integration of the content across the network W e need a way to be able to visualize that at least at a high level ETN Protected A reas and SSTN are going to be producing maps of various data types so we need a geospatial piece There was some discussion about GBIF using some open source geoportal code that the EU is using among others so the
52. o discuss that Rita Considering the savings that you might get if you were to concentrate the TNs such as if you had technical people centralized Mike Frame But maybe not see any savings on the science side and perhaps lose some buy in from other countries Pedro IABIN is important for promoting integration of the networks Antonio It may help us to get funding Pedro We do not have a formal organization that can ask for funding Antonio agree that the number of networks is not important but our PTN needs to have an important reason for existing think the PTN can survive Mike Ruggiero would be interested in what the other TNs could do for us like if they could develop and provide us with maps Mike Frame Y ou are the only group of people doing this Lots of organizations are working on species and protected areas but for pollinators there are not a lot of people if any doing this W hat can we offer the private sector Products good will social responsibility tax benefits Nestle owns Haagen Daz chocolate is reliant on pollinators so we should approach Nestle too Rita Here in Brazil itis easier to go and talk to big companies and have them sponsor projects 48 Antonio It is the same with the oil companies The companies are willing to show themselves as being part of the community even if the product has nothing to do with their product W e need someone who is good at identifying what to off
53. ol However we could not wait for this solution to be developed so at the same time we decided to see how we could do that using other solutions We found that we could use Specify collections management software to develop such a tool It does not allow us to accommodate relationship data in an elegant way but it allowed us to input the data using the capacity that Specify has to be programmed and customized We decided to go both ways we have our own tool that is almost ready but we are also pursuing the idea of having Specify as an option for those that want to manage a collection Our tool is not for collection management W e are working on Specify V ersion 6 M aybe with that next version we will be able to accommodate the relationship information extension more elegantly 7 Funda o de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de S o Paulo FAPESP Food and Agriculture Organization FAO of the United Nations Il GRANT PRESENTATIONS Recipients of the PTN Content grants gave presentations reviewing the progress they had made Following is asummary of each presentation Vera Lucia Imperatriz Fonseca Universidade de Sao Paulo Institute of Biosciences Brazil This project evaluated the status of available information on the interactions between bees and plants The approach was to collate all existing information on bee plant interactions in Brazil Data sources include bee surveys and pollen analysis studies derived from a b
54. on of the thesaurus be provided as a web service Mike Frame Y es The Spanish version will probably be done by the end of the year We are doing some work with IBM on visualization tools and social networking applications We need to think about what else you want to expose through the catalog e g the Bee image gallery and the experts database or the individual records Laurie was saying that we4 need to look at some better collaboration tools the TWG will take this up and figure out a better way for us to communicate across IABIN on sharing training and other materials etc Last night used Centura to participate in a class W e are working on an NSF project and we have to come up with how we are going to collaborate on this project so we may be able to use some of the same approaches that we come up with through that research 17 ational Science Foundation NSF 36 VI SUSTAINABILITY Sustainability Presentation Laurie Adams Pollinator Partnership USA 1 make sure that the PTN functions 2 make sure that the PTN is useful W hat does sustainability really mean 5 years from now Sustainability can exist at a variety of levels Basic maintenance improvement and optimal operation W hat are the features at these levels how frequently are they changed and modified and how much does it cost in terms of money people and time The most important way to deal with this may be to explore or seek Government fundi
55. oss Someone comes in to the PTN and there is a record over at the SSTN Do we have the capability to redirect them Antonio There might be two ways of doing that 1 sharing providers or 2 portal integrated Liz think data providers would see it as a positive thing if their pollinator specimen data was available through more than one TN Antonio We have to solve the problem where a data provider receives funding to digitize their data and that the funding source does not appear It is different if the data appears through our portal but the funding was from other TNs and from other initiatives that will not be apparent Liz Is that really a problem Antonio Y es we heard some complaints about that Mike Ruggiero We require 3 levels of credit the data owner compiler and another piece of data Liz But does that include the funder Mike Ruggiero No but it could Pedro This could be addressed just by providing different levels of credit attribution Antonio There is funding for digitizing and there is funding for networking the data Liz GISIN has come up with a solution for maintaining the chain of attribution but it does not include the funder Laurie Angie and Carlos are you concerned about attribution for the funding or the institution Carlos For the institution yes We are using our collection and someone else s collection and the other person is making sure that her collection is kept separat
56. ow did you find out about this Content Grant program And in just seeing what we have done today how are you going to change your approach This was not training but you have leaned how it works How are we going to find more people like you Did you learn something just by seeing how this works Angie think that it is important that the person that gets the training must be familiar with the biological terms because they can give more ideas for the tools and maybe before the training they can read manuals and then get the training found out about applying for an IABIN content grant studied one course in University of Lima and met a professor that told me about the IABIN web page and he told me about participating in this project Laurie Was he a Focal Point Rita He was Victor M orales he isa member of the IABIN Friends listserve Carlos We knew about IABIN because we had a previous grant for georeferencing so we knew about the network already Once we found out about the call for funding we applied because we have a collection there W hat have learned is several things that have to discuss with our teams W e need to change or consider what schema we are using with respect to interacting with this project How are we going to fill those plant pollinator relationship fields am not a biologist but am learning about many of the details that need to be considered before we start filling the databases Laurie So Vera do
57. pecies Task force that we used to develop the pollinator experts database The checklist of species names was already mentioned by M ike Ruggiero Important things we have done e Wehave used another portal Incubadora a system that is available from FAPESP It provides us with a collaborative environment supporting listserves exchanging content and for hosting code the same way that SourceF orge works e Wehave had a lot of contact with INBio and we want to strengthen our relationship with them CRIA in Brazil and with GBIF because they are the developers of the portal design and with FAQ e Wehave been working differently from some of the other networks we are quite distributed We have a group in Brazil and two or three groups NBII ITIS and Pollinator Partnership in the United States We have been very successful at collaborating remotely W e have had many phone meetings some with video and we have been very successful at doing that Part of the challenge of putting up information on plant pollinator relationships is that we need a tool for databasing this information that is based on the schema that we are developing and there is no such tool We have been working on that in two directions 1 Developing our own tool a database that is internet accessible with an interface for putting specimen relationship data based on Darwin Core schema and its extensions and 2 Looking at other tools including the SSTN input to
58. proval either electronically or in writing that your data is approved to be served through GBIF and this must be done on an individual basis Antonio am not really worried about this but it is a problem for the data providers to consider especially with respect to the Brazilian policy about this How much does a collection owner Know about this Brazilian policy Rita In talking with Braulio Brazil does not want to do it as a country because Brazil would have to pay membership to GBIF but individual organizations in Brazil can do it without penalty Antonio IABIN should take the lead in sending this information to the organizations in Brazil Laurie Y es we should definitely include this in the RFP along with the need for an IT person as part of the applying team or at least at the aware they would need an IT person and the second is the understanding that data would be shared with no only IABIN but with GBIF Carlos Rita do you know what countries besides Brazil are not willing to be part of GBIF within the A mericas Rita Argentina Colombia M exico Costa Rica already participate in GBIF and think Peru is also But the others have been waiting to see what happens with IABIN think now that IABIN is up and running they would prefer it 29 Carlos Will not that stop some people from putting their information on the web Rita do not think so because their data will be served through one or the other or both S
59. rams do not have specimens Where the NPS does not have a specimen they have indicators of the quality of the data e g park ranger saw it with binoculars L aurie These records that we have rarely have the exact relationship defined W hat has A ngie been finding in terms of these relationships Angie Some pollinators can find that they pollinate a specific plant Also some plants are not defined to the species level Mike Frame So it depends on whether you are starting fresh or going back into a collection that s not digitized Carlos So we still will need some way to supply that additional GUID Mike Ruggiero If somebody sees that piece of data about the specimen and the relationship you want to be able to trace back to the source of that information So if you asked for everything seen visiting sunflower you wouldn t have an accession number Antonio Y ou would not have a catalog number because there is no specimen but you could have an ID Laurie Rather than come up with a new number for the plant record could you relate it to the first GUID for the insect specimen Mike Ruggiero There will be a unique number attached to the observation Antonio W e need to be careful about what we do with the GBIF portal tool Because if they make changes to it then we might need to make changes to our code too unless we keep them very separate Mike Ruggiero Y ou could change the interface very easily especially so
60. rby Database is an open source relationship database Features e Allows you to create a new dataset and choose fields to be included in the dataset e Inthemain screen of Specify 6 0 you can add rows of data using a spreadsheet style view e Inthe full version of Specify 6 0 you will also be able to create new reports and have other options and capabilities e Many data collectors use Excel spreadsheets to store and manage their data Y ou can import these spreadsheets into Specify just by defining the column headers if they exist etc and you can choose which columns you want to import e You can also export rows into an Excel spreadsheet The new version will also be internet based e Reports include pie chart and bar chart representations including labels e Data comparisons are easy using the tabs associated with multiple reports Limitations e This version can only import 2 000 rows at a time e Each import action creates one dataset e Specify does not work with data relationship but one way to deal with this is to customize Specify creating a new field such as a text field that in which you can record a relationship e Creation of new fields new reports not available in the current version 12 The full version of Specify 6 will solve these limitations available this Fall perhaps September 2008 IABIN PTN Data Portal Pablo Salvanha Universidade de Sao Paulo Escola Polit cnica Brazil Paulo Venancio L opez Univ
61. rch to produce more bee information In Africa they have a lot of stingless bees and an opportunity to create a M elipona industry but they do not have any of the background information like Brazil has So we could exchange Brazilian experts with A frica PTN sustainability becomes coordinator of the western hemisphere part of this global assessment manages the human communities and the data with the portal and the IT part DISCUSSION Mike Frame The M illennium Ecosystem Assessment had not planned for what they would do with the data at the end or how they would store and manage it A lot of the data was lost because of this Mike Ruggiero Their end point was the report itself but in this case itis a report but a dynamic report and the data In that context we should seek out some very large funding Y ou have got to talk to international organizations that can go to the large foundations for funding We have still got to think through a lot of that strategy If we can tie in the capacity building and technology transfer to local people where you could take bee boxes and get them to people who can put them on their houses and make money selling the products honey wax etc Laurie Economics and human health need to be part of this Mike Ruggiero African colleagues tell me that this is also a way to educate people about the environment 44 Laurie So the difference would be that this would be where the datasets would be e
62. re was talk about that code set The ministry in Brazil is using an 3Geo product that they offered to IA BIN There was talk that Sao Paulo could support this function for IA BIN and what that would mean The Secretariat needs to push OAS to get this problem resolved Rita The trend now is to use open source but also the institute in Colombia also is using CASSIA asoftware application for dealing with geospatial data So there are also other options Mike Frame This will probably be the main topic of discussion at our next meeting J aime INBio will be using CASSIA but I m not sure if it is being used Rita It is available to anybody that has the capability to use it and improve it So for IABIN it would be really good to adopt it Antonio We have been using the geospatial tools that are already imbedded in the GBIF portal 30 Laurie How closely does that relate to what is being discussed here Antonio The portal allows us to pinpoint the records Mike Frame The new portal code in GBIF so that it will produce some WM S layers so that an IABIN geospatial network could index and display it on a map The portal base foundation will allow you to do that There are some performance issues with it Laurie With pollinators we want to be able to track temporal migratory or climate change effects We want to be able to track A fricanized bee sightings and look with geospatial specificity not just at an original specimen record
63. resentation Mike Frame on habitats the IABIN E cosystems network has classification systems for habitats with cross walks between TNC and IUCN etc Y ou should look at what they are doing because they have some online tools that you might be able to use Rita ETN is working on a cross walk between habitat standards Section II Bastidas Presentation Mike Ruggiero How is the PTN going to include the Peru data in the system Antonio Some of this data is from specimens including some relationship data Rita M ost of the information relates to species Y ou could use the SSTN database and tools that are already available to download And then the information might be interoperable with the PTN Antonio W e are working with specimen and relationship data only 3 The Nature Conservancy TNC 14 International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN Mike Frame When you Angie designed your database did you look at the Darwin Core or Plinian Core standards It would be interesting to see how much of your data is compatible Mike Ruggiero We have not yet elaborated the bibliography part and that could be another way to include the Peru data because they are examining and including references Carlos what is the geographical coverage of the collections Angie A lot of itis for Lima mainly insects and birds Rita the institute in Peru works closely with GBIF HI REVIEW OF TOOL DEVELOPMENT Antonio M auro Sara
64. rnment is always trying to get rid of functions that they do not need to do exclusively Are there some unique government functions of this R esearch and things science related are government functions because nobody else can really afford it and we are really in that world Science usually exists as part of something else Science for science sake is not sustainable In one sense it is going to be somewhere else An institute can generate funding for innovation but then you are always in a grant node The baseline funding is more institutional But what is it that you do that s fantastic and what is the unique commodity that you have got Selling information has been very difficult in the past and it is usually sustained by governments Rita M ost governments right now do not have much funding for research They usually use that funding to bring people from other countries to study Their research is mostly carried out by universities with funding from other sources Mike Ruggiero There are some other models like CONABIO Rita CONABIO is also sustained by the government IA BIN also needs to have the political support that the OAS provides and the power to have the countries participate comes from the OAS We have been looking at a combined approach We have been looking at holding a meeting in October to define ABIN s mission in the future W ould we have divest of some of our networks M aybe GBIF would be best at managing SSTN ETN is ave
65. rpretable by many providers that already use Darwin Core M odules cover all types of interactions and details increase at each module e g at the highest level you can have an interaction between a bee and a plant To have more details we have another schema for details of the interaction such as Oil Removal IABIN PTN is working with CRIA GBIF and FAO on development of 3 schemas interaction data pollination data and at the same level as the pollination data we have an environmental measures schema Y ou can use only interaction and environmental or you could use the interaction schema and pollination data or you could use all three The schemas are described in detail on the TDWG web site The first version is a replication of the Darwin Core Schema in the Interaction Schema Interaction schema includes record level elements taxonomic elements natural history elements and interaction elements The pollination schema 10 includes the pollination elements and the environmental measures schema includes the environmental measure elements If you already have both specimens registered at the user s computer then he she only needs the relationship information W e transformed the schema to optimize it and make it more efficient for data exchange The second version includes a global unique identifier of specimens in interaction schemas With this schema only the relationship information is brought and if the detailed information abo
66. ry unique TN Nobody else is doing this Mike Ruggiero IA BIN is part of GBIF so it is not completely separate Rita W e need to decide what we want to do and how best to do it and explore the possibilities that exist W hat is best for the providers and users of the data including the scientists and the decision makers W e want the information to become what CONABIO is for the M exican government who consults with CONABIO first without making any kind of decision affecting biodiversity This is why we are asking each Cl to send in ideas for sustainability with that long term view and this means defining the plans to continue at the minimum level or at other levels Laurie This meeting in October will occur where Rita We think in Washington we do not know the date yet We have to make a decision very soon so we will know within the next couple of weeks Laurie On October 22 we are hosting a party in Washington at OAS so we are hoping to showcase this service We plan to have at least something that we will invite all of 40 the ministers of agriculture the environment the ambassadors and representatives and legislators and agencies and have a way of getting them to understand the importance of this But that s a small step it would be great if it was in conjunction with the IA BIN meeting Mike Ruggiero A nother question to ask is from the network s point of view Why do we need IA BIN What added value does it pro
67. s Liz Weare also providing a data structure against which future data collectors of new data can design their data collection against 54 Annex 1 List of Participants IABIN PTN Principal Investigators Laurie Adams Coevolution Institute USA Antonio M auro Saraiva Universidade de Sao Paulo Escola Polit cnica Brazil Mike Ruggiero IABIN PTN Integrated Taxonomic Information System ITIS Other IABIN Rita Besana IABIN Secretariat J aime Guitierrez Alfaro IABIN Species and Specimens Thematic N etwork SSTN INBio Costa Rica Data C ontent Grantees Angie Romy Burgos Bastidas Red de Accion en Agricultura A Iternativa RAAA Peru Carlos Eduardo Sarmiento M onroy Universidad Nacional de Colombia Instituto de Ciencias Naturales Colombia Vera Lucia Imperatriz Fonseca Universidade de S o Paulo Institute of Biosciences Brazil Other IABIN PTN Support Jennifer Tsang Pollinator Partnership USA L ogistics Mike Frame USGS NBII USA IABIN Catalog Elizabeth Sellers USGS NBII USA Rapporteur IABIN PTN IT Support Universidade de S o Paulo Escola Polit cnica Brazil Pedro Luiz Pizzigatti Corr a Etienne Cartolano Pablo Salvanha Paulo V enancio Lopez Diogo K robath Leandro Halle Najm 55 Appendix 2 Agenda D Inter American Biodiversity Information Network Pollinators Thematic Network PTN SUNDAY JULY 20 2008 Time Presenter Activity 10 30 AM Transportation from GRU Airport to Rib
68. s associates in their political regions encourage them to come and represent them at the event 51 VII GROUP CONCLUSIONS Sustainability Group Report W e discussed the idea of a global pollinator assessment and decided that we could conduct assessments region by region We could use the data that we are collecting to help prepare an ongoing assessment of pollinators in the W estern H emisphere That is the reason we are collecting the data W e would gather our resources around those kinds of outputs Our web site could have lots of information but also serve as a collection point and source for these reports We developed the following chart for the various tasks that we could carry out at the different levels of sustainability for the network We still need to apply some dollar values to it SEU oad ENE AND COSTS Maintenance Leve x oxo Host and M aintain Internal X Interactions Interface with Other Providers Code U pdates and Content Facilitation Automatic Data Quality Checks M arketing T raining for Content Input Marketing T raining for Users Automatic Harvest amp Updates of Content Develop Collateral Products and Tools ESTIMATED COST We worked through many of the questions that we raised earlier and reached the following conclusions e PTN needs IABIN in order to have a political framework and for coordination of certain issues PTN needs a new central focus e g a regional role in a Global
69. s coordinate with all of the groups and the people T hey interface with the regional representatives or leads So right now we already have somebody that is dealing with some of the larger regions like Australia and Oceania etc Laurie Talk with W alter Reid originally from World Resources Institute Ask him how the Millennium Ecosystem A ssessment went and obtain feedback from him and see whether Packard would emphasize this They have a terrestrial section now Doug Beard M ike Frame Rita and Laurie could contact or talk about this with Walter Reid W ealso have to report something back to Richard Huber about what we want to do Mike Ruggiero W e do not have to take it to the global level right now either W e could restrict it to the W estern H emisphere Mike Frame Y ou could use this as a model for the global thing Laurie That s what V era is talking about doing an assessment of all pollinators not just bees That is a manageable concept It fits with what we have been doing already W ho would fund this The Gates Foundation or The M oore Foundation How much will we have completed at the end of next year Antonio The tool will be ready It will depend on how many providers we will have maybe 14 based on the number of content grants Laurie We already have a lot of data from the bee checklist J ohn Ascher and all of the people at our last meeting in Indaiatuba Have we started to harvest that yet Antonio W e have tho
70. s linkage to or provision of specimen collections plant pollinator relationship data an experts database taxonomic checklists and scientific literature There have been two important meetings in Indaiatuba Brazil The first was in 2003 itwas not an IABIN meeting but it was where the idea of a World Bee Checklist began At the second meeting in Indaiatuba in 2006 PTN start up we decided on the current system architecture Important decisions were made there regarding the standards and protocols that we would use They were mainly those already accepted by the biodiversity community and included TA PIR and DiGIR for data exchange Darwin Core for specimen data exchange and for plant pollinator relationship information we needed to develop a new standard to exchange that kind of data The architecture shows that we have a data portal we decided to base the portal design on the GBIF portal INBio had already decided to use the same design for the IABIN Species and Specimens Thematic Network SSTN so it was a logical decision for us to do the same and share knowledge and expertise It was not a simple task to implement W e needed to understand the GBIF tool and build the network which includes many different providers We have the SpeciesL ink connection working SpeciesLink is a network of Brazilian collections W e expect to have the connection with the SSTN and other specimen data providers completed soon W e plan to exchange data with SS
71. s of each of these TNs developing but some of the underlying data used to generate these unique components might be similar between them Eventually there would be sharing Mike Ruggiero We would like to see SSTN spend their money on pollinator specimen development because PTN does not have the budget for that We do not have a problem with the other TNs developing data that the PTN can potentially use Antonio It is essential for the user to be able to find the data that they want from the portal that they enter instead of being sent to a different portal We can have each thematic network may have slight differences such as additional documents etc It would 33 be better for the user if we have an agreement that all of the data no matter where it comes from will be served through all of the networks Laurie So is that something that the TWG can decide replicate rather than redirect Mike Frame Y es think so We can provide the PTN with the same subset that we provided to the SSTN It just makes it easier But we still need to work out between PTN if there is a provider that s not in that collection we need to make sure that it is included If you do not need all of those specimen records 50 or 60 million just certain taxa or groups then you should decide that because right now the subset is just defined by geography Antonio At the same time that does not diminish the catalog Mike Frame No because the catalog will
72. se who are linked to the SpeciesLink a Brazilian network Rita And there are two providers for specimen records EMBRAPA is one of them Antonio W e already have around 200 000 specimen records 46 Mike Ruggiero We are planning an assessment of US bumble bees for October Antonio W hat would be a practical way for us to find out which collections have pollinator data so we could connect them to our portal Could we use Mike s pollinator checklist so that we could run it against all of the specimens that we have Mike Ruggiero Y es There are various other sources for pollinator plant associations including the PCDL Laurie The most important way that we can sell this is to have a really good product that really is useful We are moving toward an assessment of just the western hemisphere The goal in the next year has to be to get as much of this included and to get it to function as smoothly as we possibly can Mike Frame It would be good to work out a way to show that the catalog has X holdings but the Pollinators network also has X number of species available Instead of just a link indicate what the PTN has that is related to the search query L aurie The catalog is not the index of everything but it does not link to the TNs either It is kind of right in the middle Mike Frame In the short term think depending on what the query was we will provide a link or some kind of advertisement to the different networks L
73. ssured of this A few years ago there was a certain level of uncertainty but some of that has changed now as IABIN is seen to be making a difference Components of sustainability TNs five of them and the catalog should be maintained and operating Slides do exist for discussions related to sustainability by the IA BIN council during their January Council meeting in Panama DISCUSSION Rita The Focal Points wanted to talk to their ministers of the environment regarding making IA BIN a commission It would have to be presented at the Summit for sustainability and then ratified by the OAS Carolina has been writing to the Focal Points about this It has to be initiated by the OAS through the Focal Points Mike Ruggiero If IA BIN is designated as a commission it means some existing funding Rita If the countries are the ones that are requesting this then the countries have to be willing to contribute some funds in order to provide some core funding It is not very clear right now Laurie There was an email from Richard with some sustainability concepts that he wanted us to react to We have to send him something about our sustainability plan Rita The idea would be that each one of the Cls would say we will continue or integrate the TN into our long term activities If you can work from that and see what you can provide e g the ETN has been talking with NatureServe and the TNC who have an interest in the ecosystem products th
74. ta available for decision makers land managers and planners Mike Ruggiero IABIN PTN Integrated Taxonomic Information System ITIS reported on the progress of the network He discussed the PTN vision and partners and provided a brief outline of the PTN architecture and content Healso described the information needs assessment that was conducted during a series of meetings as well as on line The assessment identified five priority areas for content development delivery e Scientific and common names Experts Specimens and observations Pollinator plant relationships and Literature The Integrated Taxonomic Information System ITIS has completed a W orld Checklist of Bees The checklist contains scientific and common names for nearly 19 500 species is now available online at www itis gov ITIS has also completed world checklists of bats and birds and has started work on flies beetles butterflies and moths and other pollinator groups Eighty two major bee collections have been identified for the W estern Hemisphere 32 in South America 30 in North A merica 2 in Central America and 18 in Europe A bout 1 3 are databased The first priority is to make these collections accessible IABIN Content Grants have been given to investigators in Brazil Colombia and Peru Progress on these projects will be reported later Grants from GBIF have also been provided to Y ork University Canada CRIA Brazil Utah State University Logan USA
75. tact Us Page we should include a section for the media to find out how to get more information Carlos How can we protect members experts emails from spam We could break the email field into two fields with the name in the first one and the symbol hard coded on the interface and the domain in a second field But in the database it would still be stored in a single field Or users can choose to type their email address in without the symbol and use AT instead We can include this as a tip in the user manual 15 Angie Same comment as M ike Ruggiero about making the taxonomic search hierarchical Antonio Experts Database How do we accept determine if someone is an expert Who should the email inquiries go to Suggestions so far are 1 send in two references to one of our team members who 2 have someone checking the information Carlos Some scientific lists send you emails to check that your information is updated That might be nice to have because it is very difficult to keep track of everyone s email This could be automated Liz DAISIE has something like this and they also have criteria for removing records from their experts database Mike Ruggiero It will be difficult to tell someone that they cannot participate Laurie how do you evaluate people Laurie If the person uses their association in NA PPC to further themselves then we will not allow them to participate Mike Ruggiero People in Englan
76. that it highlights this relationship data 20 IV TRAINING Antonio led a discussion about training in an attempt to define the product and how it relates to people K ey considerations were Target audience Content of the courses Schedule R esources Location Course T eam people who will prepare and apply training Attendees who do we want to train o trainers people who will be able to train other people o users who will use the tools immediately o train both in the same course or not We need to decide whether to train IT people biologists or both Course content should include PTN data entry tools our tool and Specify customized Experts Database PTN Portal how to use it Collaboration Portal software development general discussions wiki Foundations of Biodiversity Informatics basics on biodiversity information standards and protocols for data exchange development tools and environments and training on SSTN tools optional Course materials should include tools description installation use code when applicable development information foundations basic texts and format texts slides CD DVD We should offer one course in 2008 or early 2009 and another in late 2009 for new grantees if there are resources The resources should come from IABIN Component 2 We need to find out how much funding is available how to apply and if there are any constraints We also need to determine where best to hold the
77. the training including selecting students and include the budget too Organization of American States OAS 16 Non Government Organization NGO 24 V RELATED ISSUES IABIN Catalog and Search Tool Mike Frame USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure USA W hat is the role of the IA BIN Catalog for finding and integrating information We have thematic networks with particular purpose content and often unclear relationships between them W hat does IA BIN need to make sure that people know that those resources exist That is the purpose of the catalog It was the last consultancy to start The catalog will provide an integrated customized multilingual search tool for IA BIN to be termed IABIN BioBot which will build upon data and information made available through IABIN s TNs the current NBII BioBot included There are three products a multilingual search tool multi lingual thesaurus capabilities and code scripts for delivering relevant content from TNs Year 1 We will produce a work plan form a technical working group and modify the NBII BioBot Search interface Need capability to expand terms that people use to search e g Invasive species may mean something different in different regions e g non native introduced alien etc The catalog accommodates this The catalog is available in English Spanish and Portuguese Resources can be viewed by TN content type e g images and geography lt
78. thority file e g should we include Brasil or Brazil Specimen observation interaction form Use this form with Specify If a person uses Specify to manage their collection they can use this form to publish only the interaction data They can use the GUI of the collection and publish only the interaction data View interface The user can view records 11 N ext Steps e Charge ITIS pollinators checklist V alidate update features 30 J uly Validate Draft M aterial Training 30 J uly Create an Install Package 30 A ugust Study a Security Policy to Interface 30 A ugust Define the tool distribution policy Train data providers Define authorities for data e g Brasil or Brazil A test exercise of the digitization tool to save nine interaction records was conducted and evaluated Specify Software to Store and M anage Collection Data Leandro Halle Najm Specify is a collection management platform for biodiversity data The software comes with a prepared schema to work with the web and the DIGIR interface Itis for a native provider using DIGIR protocol The final user application is to standardize collection data Itis a cataloger with field research and lab work functionality Specify was developed by the University of K ansas It supports multiple platforms including Windows Mac OS X and LINUX The software requirement is that J ava 1 6 is installed No installation is required it works with aUSB memory drive De
79. tics projects but the digitization of the different collections is a different story The insect collection has only just started to be digitized The goal for our project is to have 3 000 specimens of the ICN bee collection systematized so far we have completed 1436 This is 100 of the bee collection but we have not worked with the butterfly collection about 8 000 specimens The bat collection pollinating bats is about 1 000 specimens we have completed 600 The LABUN bee collection has about 20 000 specimens So far we have not worked much on this We are using Specify to introduce all of the information Bee AAT or Taxonomic Authority Archives we are working on this in order to provide the correct information for all of the specimen information We are following Darwin Core for specimens and Plinian core for species data Our bottleneck now is the AAT list because that has to be done in a professional way We are using postgraduate students working side by side with experts and that is taking time because we have to do it carefully verifying names in the literature etc Another stage of the project Plinian Core requires that you enter the taxonomic status of the species Thatis a decision that is difficult to make if you are not an expert Another area we would like to discuss is that some of the fields in Plinian core require entry of information on endemism and habitat W e need to establish a vocabulary and definitions for this We a
80. ts Database M ake required red fields Better label for Profile Better label for Tier e g Hidden Geography Google Pick ability to pick a place from an interactive map Search gt Continent gt Country seemed to have to select both Reduce general user person to add taxa Available to other IABIN TN Is available to IABIN Catalog URL is it permanent temporary need something like experts contacts now Section III Cartolano Presentation Carlos s there a way to download this information for insertion into another analysis Antonio Y es through the Data Portal Mike Frame We input data through this client Is the TAPIR client running in the background of that also How is this being served up The objective is to provide the TAPIR provider and this tool together in the install package Then the data provider can insert the data and also automatically provide the data for our portal Mike Frame There will be some kind of registration of all of these TAPIR providers and then the portal will index that registration how are you managing that piece Antonio Right now we are showing the tool and the providers that are ready to be harvested Mike Ruggiero W here does this information get saved to To my server W hat if do not havea server Antonio M aybe we can have a server to host your data Mike Frame W hen we put this data in through this tool it went i
81. ture to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology W ikipedia H ow can we connect leverage the food crisis Mike Ruggiero The crisis in the US is the quality of food and essential nutrients eating more fruits and vegetables etc Y ou can eat lots of rice but you need other nutrients Antonio Link to food quality and nutrition Laurie and variety and that is what pollination provides us Antonio Y ou could create a graphic that illustrates food options in the absence of pollinators e g Thanksgiving with and without pollinators Laurie The agriculture industry is looking into building self pollinating crops so they are not necessarily concerned about loss of pollinators 49 M arketing to Users IABIN Friends Listserv gt increase postings to this listserv Academic Associations we could send announcements to gt IUSSI Central America Brasil Colombia V enezuela gt Colombian Society of Entomology easy to advertise things on the web site SOCOLEN gt SID system of the Humboldt Institute monthly bulletin about new resources email based ESP SEP in Espanol Entomology Society in Peru Natural History M useum of San Marcos University Foundations Ecological Societies Government EMBRAPA A picultural societies and associations U S Department of State Cable system M ajor products in Colombia Peru Brazil that might have associations Coffee Growers Associations
82. ut the specimens are required then one two Darwin Core requests are issued The next steps are to study the impact of the interaction schema modifications operational and technical by digitization tool and PTN data portal and address user comments from the TDWG Forum and the PTN Web site Digitization T ool Etienne C artolano Universidade de S o Paulo E scola Polit cnica Brazil The Digitization Tool will provide an interface to digitize specimen data with Darwin Core schema observed collected specimens It will also provide an interface to digitize pollinator interaction data with Darwin Core extensions interaction pollination and environment measures based on the new version It will also publish saved data with TAPIR provider Tool Features include e Save view delete and update records Internet access from any browser M ultilanguage support Portability Windows and Linux environment Use of Open Source tools A pache M ySQL and PHP XML File for Fields Specification Inside this XML file can specify the fields of the form For example have a field named pollination evidence that s type longtext and it is a type of percent of pollination This field can be translated into Brazilian Spanish English and French It is easy to modify this file because we have a well defined schema Products R esults a quadri lingual online interface We need to define the terms of the specimen observation data form develop an au
83. valuated and channeled to the end Our goal right now is to create the ability for everybody to do that But maybe to sustain ourselves we have to add to what we are doing so that s another level of administrative management Mike Ruggiero This gives a purpose to the data that we are collecting Mike Frame But you need to factor in the analysis piece of that and the costs of that Mike Ruggiero W e are working backwards from the end where we have identified what we want to achieve and then all of these other things are how we will achieve that Antonio One of our main criticisms we had of the final format of the FAO project is that they asked for a tool for decision making regarding pollination which is not possible if we do not have the data and steps that occur before it Mike Frame But it is hard to get people to pay for that data digitization and steps that lead up to the final product The key thing is to wordsmith your proposal that shows that final product Mike Ruggiero Simon Potts displayed a map that showed different regions of the world that are at risk and dependent on pollinators that is a compelling communication device Antonio We were shown a map of the current distribution for legumes now and then in 50 years using datafrom ALARM L aurie If we wanted something like that for our OAS party where we showed a map of the W estern Hemisphere and showed where we grow things like coffee Mike Ruggiero Y ou could
84. vide Certainly there is that political linkage that s very helpful Sustainability Discussion W hat level can be supported for what amount of money W e said in theory there are 5 levels of maintenance and what do they really mean The minimum is at level one All we would do is host and maintain our internal interactions All of the data in our network would be available from now until the end of time The next level includes that but also interface with other providers other TNs or GBIF for example We also said it would be important to update codes as necessary and facilitate on an automatic basis people who want to input content no content grants or hand holding but a tool that facilitates this and possibly some automatic data quality checks in place The third level would also include some marketing and training for content input so we would solicit data On the fourth level we would also have marketing and training for users on how to use our services This is where we are now but we are also developing products At the 5 level we would have some automatic harvest of content from searches and crawls and work on developing collateral products and tools This is where there is a potential for raising money something that we market tools we give to farmers or biologists or seminars whatever those products are it takes money to develop them This is open for suggestion Administrative management of looking for

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