Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), originally called the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

scientific and educational association that works to develop

open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definitio ...

s for the exchange of

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'') ...

data, facilitating

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 affiliated with the

International Union of Biological Sciences The International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) is a non-profit organization and non-governmental organization, founded in 1919, that promotes the biological sciences internationally. As a scientific umbrella organization it was a founding m ...

. It is best known for the

Darwin Core Darwin Core (often abbreviated to DwC) is an extension of Dublin Core for biodiversity informatics. It is meant to provide a stable standard reference for sharing information on biological diversity (biodiversity). The terms described in this stan ...

standard for exchanging biodiversity, which has been used by the

Global Biodiversity Information Facility The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the ...

to collect millions of biological observations from museums and other organizations from around the world.

History

TDWG was founded in 1985 as the Taxonomic Databases Working Group; the first meeting took place on September 28–30, 1985, at the

Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva The Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the city of Geneva () is a museum and an institution of the City of Geneva. Establishment and location It was founded in 1817 in a former area of ''Bastions Park'' in 1817 by Augustin Pyramus de Candoll ...

in Switzerland. The organisation was formed as an international collaboration to promote the wider and more effective dissemination of information about biological organisms. Its name was changed to Taxonomic Databases Working Group for Plant Sciences in 1986. It was accepted as a commission of the International Union of Biological Sciences in October 1988. The name changed to International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases for Plant Sciences in 1988. Initially focusing on plant

taxonomic database A taxonomic database is a database created to hold information on biological taxa – for example groups of organisms organized by species name or other taxonomic identifier – for efficient data management and information retrieval. Taxonomic dat ...

s, in 1994 it expanded its scope to cover all taxonomic databases and changed its name to International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases. In 2006 the group decided to change their name to emphasise their focus was on standards for sharing biodiversity data, rather than on taxonomy or the databases themselves. However, they wished to retain ''TDWG'' for historical continuity, so the name became ''Biodiversity Informations Standards (TDWG)''.

Activities

TDWG organises an annual meeting for its members. The organization was founded at the first meeting in Geneva in 1985. The association currently: # Develops, adopts, and promotes standards and guidelines for the recording, discovery, exchange, and integration of data about

organisms In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells ( cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and fu ...

, # Promotes the use of these standards and guidelines through the most appropriate and effective means, and # Acts as a forum for discussion about

standards This organization publishes conference proceedings in the ''Biodiversity Information Science and Standards'' (''BISS''), published by

Pensoft Pensoft Publishers (also known as: Pensoft) are a publisher of scientific literature based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Pensoft was founded in 1992, by two academics: Lyubomir Penev and Sergei Golovatch. It has published over 1000 academic and professional ...

References

External links

* Bioinformatics organizations Taxonomy (biology) organizations Biodiversity databases Organizations established in 1985 Working groups Standards organizations 1985 establishments in Switzerland {{Biology-org-stub