News

WHO WON OUR CALL - That missing detail that BiCIKL can help to find

28 July 2023
It's time to meet Anke Penzlin, from Senckenberg – Leibniz Institution for Biodiversity and Earth System Research. The german scientist proposed a project called "Automating the interlinkage between GBIF data and WoRMS taxonomy to enhance the data flow from GBIF to OBIS".


How did you get to know BiCIKL and this call?

I heard about BiCIKL first from my colleagues who were taking part in a BiCIKL hackathon. This call was spread (and reached Hanieh) via the CETAF ISTC mailing list.

Why did you apply here, to address what challenge/need?

In GBIF, occurrence data are matched to the GBIF backbone by a scientific name string. For data contribution to OBIS, it needs an AphiaID connecting occurrences to WoRMS. We discovered that WoRMS as a GBIF checklist is very highly mapped to GBIF backbone. Connecting occurrence data via GBIF to other taxonomic backbones would be quite helpful (for us and very probably also others). so we asked the experts here if this might be a possible project.


How BiCIKL would help to address your need or challenge?

The mapping of taxonomic backbones already exists in GBIF. The integration step that's key to overcoming our challenge would be a procedure to step from an occurrence via the assigned taxon to its ID within another taxonomic backbone. It would be great to have a possibility to get the different taxonIDs for a whole occurrence dataset.

Who will benefit from your project? 

Data providers who are struggling with different taxonomic backbones.


What will you consider as a success for your project?

An automated procedure for querying mapped taxonomies usable for everyone


How will you define your project with a single sentence?

Connecting backbone taxonomy IDs to occurrences is delivering the last missing key to transfer GBIF data to further (specialized) data portals.