Basic Standards Recommendations
The most widely deployed formats for biodiversity occurrence data are Darwin Core (wiki) and ABCD (wiki). New deployments of these and other XML based formats should use the TAPIR exchange protocol.
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.
Please consider becoming 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 1
Institutional members are entitled to up to five discounted registrations at the annual conference. Please visit the Membership page for more details.
Latest News
18-Feb-2009 TAPIR and Darwin Core Submitted to the Standards Track
TAPIR and Darwin Core have recently been submitted to the TDWG Standards Track for review. Gail Kampmeier has agreed to be the Review Manager for Darwin Core and Piers Higgs will be the Review Manager for TAPIR.
Please support...
18-Feb-2009 TAPIR and Darwin Core Submitted to the Standards Track
TAPIR and Darwin Core have recently been submitted to the TDWG Standards Track for review. Gail Kampmeier has agreed to be the Review Manager for Darwin Core and Piers Higgs will be the Review Manager for TAPIR.
Please support...
18-Feb-2009 TAPIR and Darwin Core Submitted to the Standards Track
TAPIR and Darwin Core have recently been submitted to the TDWG Standards Track for review. Gail Kampmeier has agreed to be the Review Manager for Darwin Core and Piers Higgs will be the Review Manager for TAPIR.
Please support...
27-Jan-2009 STERNA Technology Watch Report
STERNA (Semantic Web-based Thematic European Reference Network Application) is the contribution of twelve European natural history museums and other institutions that collect and hold content on biodiversity, wildlife and nature....
See the News Archive for more news.


