The NBN Atlas is the UK node for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and with the agreement of our data providers we regularly share records from UK-based datasets with GBIF. We recently had several requests from UK organisations to share their non-UK datasets with GBIF. Often the records are from several countries and so it would be time-consuming for the organisations to submit the records to the relevant GBIF country nodes.
The NBN Trust now has a process in place for UK organisations to share their overseas records with GBIF via the NBN Atlas. We create a metadata page for the dataset on the NBN Atlas and manually create the Darwin Core Archive file of metadata and data supplied by the data provider, which is then sent to GBIF. The records are not uploaded to the NBN Atlas because most of the taxon names of non-UK taxa will not be found in the UK Species Inventory.
Currently we have three datasets that we have shared in this way:
- GalliForm: Galliformes occurrence records from the Indo-Malay and Palaearctic, 1800-2008
- Reptiles and Amphibians in World Museum, National Museums Liverpool
- Sumner, D.P. 2020, European Micropezids & Tanypezids, Published Papers Part A
We are grateful to Darwyn Sumner for the initial request to share his European records with GBIF and for his support in working through the process. Darwyn has produced a guide and instructions on how to compile and prepare records for submission to GBIF, specifically aimed at European recorders.
We are also very happy to support data providers in preparing the data file and metadata for submission.
Please get in touch if you would like to share datasets of non-UK or Isle of Man datasets with GBIF. Please email data@nbnatlas.org