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Darwin Core (often abbreviated to DwC) is an extension of Dublin Core for
biodiversity informatics Biodiversity informatics is the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information, such as taxonomy, biogeography or ecology. Modern computer techniques can yield new ways to view and analyze existing information, as well as predict ...
. It is meant to provide a stable standard reference for sharing information on biological diversity (
biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') le ...
). The terms described in this standard are a part of a larger set of vocabularies and technical specifications under development and maintained by
Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), originally called the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, is a non-profit scientific and educational association that works to develop open standards for the exchange of biodiversity data, facilitating bio ...
(formerly the Taxonomic Databases Working Group).


Description

The Darwin Core is a body of standards intended to facilitate the sharing of information about biological diversity. The DwC includes a glossary of terms, and documentation providing reference definitions, examples, and commentary. An overview of the currently adopted terms and concepts can be found in th
Darwin Core quick reference guide
maintained by TDWG. The DwC operational unit is primarily based on
taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...
, their occurrence in nature as documented by observations, specimens, and samples, and related information. Included in the standard are documents describing how these terms are managed, how the set of terms can be extended for new purposes, and how the terms can be used. Each DwC term includes a definition and discussions meant to promote the consistent use of the terms across applications and disciplines. In other contexts, such terms might be called properties, elements, fields, columns, attributes, or concepts. Though the data types and constraints are not provided in the term definitions, recommendations are made about how to restrict the values where appropriate, for instance by suggesting the use of
controlled vocabularies Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controlling ...
. DwC standards are versioned and are constantly evolving, and working groups frequently add to the documentation practical examples that discuss, refine, and expand the normative definitions of each term. This approach to documentation allows the standard to adapt to new purposes without disrupting existing applications. In practice, Darwin Core decouples the definition and semantics of individual terms from application of these terms in different technologies. Darwin Core provides separate guidelines on how to encode the terms as RDF,Darwin Core XML Guide
/ref> XML
/ref> or text files.
/ref> The Simple Darwin Core
/ref> is a specification for one particular way to use the terms and to share data about taxa and their occurrences in a simply-structured way. It is likely what is meant if someone were to suggest "formatting your data according to the Darwin Core".


History

Darwin Core was originally created as a
Z39.50 Z39.50 is an international standard client–server, application layer communications protocol for searching and retrieving information from a database over a TCP/IP computer network, developed and maintained by the Library of Congress. It is ...
profile by the Z39.50 Biology Implementers Group (ZBIG), supported by funding from a USA National Science Foundation award.An Experimental Z39.50 Information Retrieval Protocol Test Bed for Biological Collection and Taxonomic Data, #981144

/ref> The name "Darwin Core" was first coined by Allen Allison at the first meeting of the ZBIG held at the University of Kansas in 1998 while commenting on the profile's conceptual similarity with Dublin Core. The Darwin Core profile was later expressed as an XML Schema document for use by the Distributed Generic Information Retrieval (DiGIR) protocol. A TDWG task group was created to revise the Darwin Core, and a ratified metadata standard was officially released on 9 October 2009. Though ratified as a standard by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) since then, Darwin Core has had numerous previous versions in production usage. The published standard contains a normative term listDarwin Core Normative Term List
/ref> with the complete history of the versions of terms leading to the current standard.


Key projects using Darwin Core

* The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) * The
Ocean Biogeographic Information System The Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), formerly Ocean Biogeographic Information System, is a web-based access point to information about the distribution and abundance of living species in the ocean. It was developed as the information ...
(OBIS)
The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA)Online Zoological Collections of Australian Museums (OZCAM)Mammal Networked Information System (MaNIS)Ornithological Information System (ORNIS)VertNetCanadensysSistema Nature 3.0Encyclopedia of LifeIntegrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio)


See also

* Darwin Core Archive


References


External links


Darwin Core Quick Reference GuideDarwin Core Development SiteOfficial Darwin Core WebsiteExecutive Summary of Darwin CoreDarwin Core Standard Specifications
- GitHub repository where DwC is actively maintained{{Citation, last=Darwin Core task group, first=Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), title=Darwin Core: 2014-11-08, date=2014-11-08, url=https://zenodo.org/record/12694, doi=10.5281/zenodo.592792, access-date=2020-10-22 Bioinformatics Knowledge representation Interoperability Metadata standards Categoría:Biología computacional