Jump to content

Avibase

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Avibase
Type of site
Taxonomic database
Available in105 languages
Created byDenis Lepage
URLavibase.bsc-eoc.org
Launched2003
Current statusActive

Avibaseis an onlinetaxonomic databasethat organizesbirdtaxonomicand distribution data globally. The database relies on the notion of taxonomic concepts[1][2]rather than taxonomic names.[3]Avibase incorporates and organizes taxonomic data from the main avian taxonomic publishers (The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World,[4]Handbook of the Birds of the World,BirdLife International,[5]IOC Checklist[6]and theHoward and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World[7]) and other regional sources (e.g. all editions of theAmerican Ornithological Society Checklist of North American Birdssince 1886). Taxonomic concepts in over 230 different taxonomic sources have been mapped and cross-referenced to Avibase concepts.

The website also offers checklists for more than 20,000 geographic regions of the world, species pages with taxonomic information and synonyms, and tools for observers to maintain their own sightings and obtain reports, such as a map showing countries oreBirdhotspots with target species.

History and purpose[edit]

Avibase was created and is maintained by Denis Lepage, currently senior director, data science and technology atBirds Canada.The data contained in Avibase has been gathered starting around 1991.[8]The Avibase website was launched in June 2003 and has been hosted byBirds Canada(formerly Bird Studies Canada) since its inception.

Features[edit]

Taxonomic concepts.The database is organized primarily around a table of unique taxonomic concepts. A taxonomic concept is a way of grouping similar taxa together in a database in a more flexible way as compared to specific species names.[9][10][11]Each concept represents a unique biological circumscription and has been assigned a unique alphanumeric ID called Avibase ID. Avibase IDs allow the tracking of congruent taxonomic concepts among publication sources. There are approximately 58,000 unique taxonomic concepts described in Avibase. These include concepts traditionally recognized as species andsubspecies,but also other taxonomic groupings (subspecies groups), various alternative taxonomic treatments recognized historically, and other concepts representinghybrids,color morphsand invalid or dubious forms.

Nomenclature data.Eachscientific nameis described to include citation data and the name associated with the original description. Approximately 87,000 scientific names have been recorded in Avibase, and various types ofsynonymsare also available.

Regional species checklistsare available for more than 20,000 regions of the world. This includes all countries, territories and dependencies, and most regions defined in theGADMsubnational layers such as provinces, states, prefectures, counties, departments, municipalities and districts (GADM levels 1 and 2), as well as over 2,500 islands. Regional checklists are available in several taxonomic formats and can incorporatecommon namesin a variety of languages. Data for regional checklists originates from multiple of sources, such as the eBird EBD dataset and forums such as the Facebook Global Rare Bird Alert.

Common names and synonymsare available in 271 different languages and regional variants, and there are 21 languages that have a coverage greater than 85% of species with a known common name.

MyAvibase,launched in 2013, provides free tools for users to maintain theirlife listsand generate reports that are focused on finding target species that the observer has not yet seen, or general regional statistics (e.g. total number of species by country).

Notes[edit]

  1. ^Berendsohn, Walter G. (1995)."The Concept of" Potential Taxa "in Databases".Taxon.44(2): 207–212.doi:10.2307/1222443.JSTOR1222443.
  2. ^Kennedy, J.; Hyam, R.; Kukla, R.; Paterson, T. (2006)."Standard Data Model Representation for Taxonomic Information".OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology.10(2): 220–230.doi:10.1089/omi.2006.10.220.PMID16901230.
  3. ^Lepage, Denis; Vaidya, Gaurav; Guralnick, Robert (2014)."Avibase – a database system for managing and organizing taxonomic concepts".ZooKeys(420): 117–135.Bibcode:2014ZooK..420..117L.doi:10.3897/zookeys.420.7089.PMC4109484.PMID25061375.
  4. ^The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019.
  5. ^Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 4.HBW and BirdLife International (Dec. 2019)
  6. ^IOC World Bird List (v10.1)Gill F, D Donsker & P Rasmussen (Eds). 2020.
  7. ^The Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World, version 4.1 (Downloadable checklist)Archived2020-06-03 at theWayback MachineChristidis et al. 2018.
  8. ^"Avibase - The World Bird Database".avibase.bsc-eoc.org.
  9. ^"Taxonomy for Humans or Computers? Cognitive Pragmatics for Big Data."Sterner, Beckett, and Nico M. Franz. 2017. Biological Theory 12 (2): 99–111.
  10. ^To Increase Trust, Change the Social Design behind Aggregated Biodiversity Data.Franz, Nico M., and Beckett W. Sterner. 2018. Database 2018 (January).
  11. ^"Controlling the Taxonomic Variable: Taxonomic Concept Resolution for a Southeastern United States Herbarium Portal."Franz, Nico, Edward Gilbert, Bertram Ludäscher, and Alan Weakley. 2016. Research Ideas and Outcomes 2 (September): e10610.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikidatahas the property:
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Avibase&oldid=1232938997"