Center for Biodiversity Informatics

Mission: The Center for Biodiversity Informatics (CBI) at the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) seeks to provide innovative technology solutions to the global community of life science scholars in order to mobilize, integrate, and repatriate data about the world's biodiversity.

"Biodiversity informatics" is a term generally used in the broad sense to apply to computerized handling of any biodiversity information. More specifically, it is defined as the creation, integration, analysis, and understanding of information regarding biological diversity. Currently, efforts are underway to make the vast, decentralized resources of global biodiversity information available in digital form. Imposing consistency and compatibility among the scores of searchable databases on the world's biota is an enormous challenge within the field. The Center for Biodiversity Informatics, along with hundreds of practitioners around the world and numerous people involved with the design and construction of taxonomic databases, are collaborating to tackle these challenges.

CBI Goals

CBI has three major objectives which guide their decisions on which projects and services to support:

1. Mobilize biodiversity data to support the research activities of scientists and students around the world.  CBI assists in the publication of such data through its leadership role in the development of content repositories to access plant specimens (Tropicos), species data (World Flora Online), biodiversity literature (Biodiversity Heritage Library), and living collections information (Living Collections Management System). These repositories provide primary, authoritative data used in systematics, conservation, ecological restoration, sustainable land management, and all other areas of life science research.
2. Increase usability of biodiversity information by advocating the open and transparent publication of data. There exists a wealth of primary data on the world's biota, but much of it is held in closed systems. In order to make these data available to the widest audience possible, barriers between content holders and consumers need to be removed by publishing data in ways that provide attribution to their source, but do not impede access.
3. Encourage responsible stewardship of biodiversity information through adoption of community standards. Biodiversity datasets are most easily exchanged and integrated into other efforts when published according to community standards. CBI plays an important role in the stewardship of data through active participation in writing and extending international biodiversity data standards.