title: Darwin Core: an evolving community-developed biodiversity data standard.
abstract: Biodiversity data derive from myriad sources stored in various formats on many distinct hardware and software platforms. An essential step towards understanding global patterns of biodiversity is to provide a standardized view of these heterogeneous data sources to improve interoperability. Fundamental to this advance are definitions of common terms. This paper describes the evolution and development of Darwin Core, a data standard for publishing and integrating biodiversity information. We focus on the categories of terms that define the standard, differences between simple and relational Darwin Core, how the standard has been implemented, and the community processes that are essential for maintenance and growth of the standard. We present case-study extensions of the Darwin Core into new research communities, including metagenomics and genetic resources. We close by showing how Darwin Core records are integrated to create new knowledge products documenting species distributions and changes due to environmental perturbations.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wieczorek
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bloom
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Guralnick
authors.forename: Stan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Blum
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Döring
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Giovanni
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Robertson
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vieglais
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D058448:Biota; D003625:Data Collection / Q000592:standards; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000592:standards*; D004777:Environment; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D056084:Genetic Fitness / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000592:standards; D008954:Models, Biological; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D054928:Validation Studies as Topic