Basic Standards Recommendations
The most widely deployed formats for biodiversity occurrence data are Darwin Core (wiki) and ABCD (wiki).
The TDWG community's priority is the deployment of Life Science Identifiers (LSID), the preferred Globally Unique Identifier technology and transitioning to RDF encoded metadata as defined by a set of simple vocabularies. All new projects should address the need for tagging their data with LSIDs and consider the use or development of appropriate vocabularies.
TDWG's activities within the biodiversity informatics domain can be found in the Activities section of this website.
2013 TDWG Annual Conference Announcement
Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) will hold its annual conference in Florence, Italy on October 28 – November 1. it will be held at the Grand Hotel Mediterraneo (http://www.
Please become a member. TDWG needs everyone with a strong interest in biodiversity information to participate in developing effective standards for sharing that information. We need IT professionals, taxonomists, ecologists, geoscientists, and librarians. We need members from institutions and agencies that do or could use our standards to make their data more usable. Your participation ensures that what we develop will save you time and money.
There are three ways to join TDWG-
- Free registration - Required to access TDWG online resources
- Individual Membership - US$75/year
- Institutional Membership - US$500/year but US$400 if paid by March 31 (discount period extended!)
Institutional members are entitled to up to five discounted registrations at the annual conference. Please visit the Membership page for more details.
Latest News
25-Oct-2012 Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG): call for detailed expressions of interest to host the annual conference in 2014, in Africa
Detailed Expressions of interest are due in writing by December 20th 2012
Where more than one submission is received, the executive will determine the successful submission by Feb 30th 2013. The successful applicant for 2014...
08-May-2012 Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG): call for expressions of interest to host an annual conference in years 2015 to 2017
The Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), Time and Place Committee is seeking expressions of interest to host its annual conference within the broader schedule given...
21-Apr-2012 2012 TDWG annual conference Announcement
The Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Executive Committee is pleased to announce that the 2012 TDWG annual conference will be held on October 22-26, 2012 at the China People’s Palace in Beijing, China. Professor...
17-Aug-2011 Travel Awards for African Participation in 2011 TDWG Conference
Biodiversity Information Specialists from developing African countries are invited to apply for travel support to participate in the 2011 Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Conference, 16-21 October in New Orleans,...
15-Jun-2011 TDWG 2011 Annual Conference
The 2011 TDWG annual conference will be held on October 16-21, 2011 at the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel in New Orleans, Louisiana. Registration will open July 1st, 2011. Details are available at www.tdwg.org/conference2011/
See the News Archive for more news.


