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The Brazilian Plant-Pollinator Interactions Network*1 (REBIPP) aims to develop scientific and teaching activities in plant-pollinator interaction. The main goals of the network are to: 1. generate a diagnosis of plant-pollinator interactions in Brazil; 2. integrate knowledge in pollination of natural, agricultural, urban and restored areas; 3. identify knowledge gaps; 4. support public policy guidelines aimed at the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services for pollination and food production; 5. and encourage collaborative studies among REBIPP participants. To achieve these goals the group has resumed and built on previous works in data standard definition done under the auspices of the IABIN-PTN (Etienne Américo et al. 2007) and FAO (Saraiva et al. 2010) projects (Saraiva et al. 2017). The ultimate goal is to standardize the ways data on plant-pollinator interactions are digitized, to facilitate data sharing and aggregation. A database will be built with standardized data from Brazilian researchers members of the network to be used by the national community, and to allow sharing data with data aggregators. To achieve those goals three task groups of specialists with similar interests and background (e.g botanists, zoologists, pollination biologists) have been created. Each group is working on the definition of the terms to describe plants, pollinators and their interactions. The glossary created explains their meaning, trying to map the suggested terms into Darwin Core (DwC) terms, and following the TDWG Standards Documentation Standard*2 in definition. Reaching a consensus on terms and their meaning among members of each group is challenging, since researchers have different views and concerns about which data are important to be included into a standard. That reflects the variety of research questions that underlie different projects and the data they collect. Thus, we ended up having a long list of terms, many of them useful only in very specialized research protocols and experiments, sometimes rarely collected or measured. Nevertheless we opted to maintain a very comprehensive set of terms, so that a large number of researchers feel that the standard meets their needs and that the databases based on it are a suitable place to store their data, thus encouraging the adoption of the data standard. An update of the work will soon be available at REBIPP website and will be open for comments and contributions. This proposal of a data standard is also being discussed within the TDWG Biological Interaction Data Interest Group*3 in order to propose an international standard for species interaction data. The importance of interaction data for guiding conservation practices and ecosystem services provision management has led to the proposal of defining Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) related to biological interactions. Essential Biodiversity Variables (Pereira et al. 2013) were developed to identify key measurements that are required to monitoring biodiversity change. EBVs act as intermediate abstract layer between primary observations (raw data) and indicators (Niemeijer 2002). Five EBV classes have been defined in an initial stage: genetic composition, species populations, species traits, community composition, ecosystem function and ecosystem structure. Each EBV class defines a list of candidate EBVs for biodiversity change monitoring (Fig. 1). Consequently, digitalization of such data and making them available online are essential. Differences in sampling protocols may affect data scalability across space and time, hence imposing barriers to the full use of primary data and EBVs calculation (Henry et al. 2008). Thus, common protocols and methods should be adopted as the most straightforward approach to promote integration of collected data and to allow calculation of EBVs (Jürgens et al. 2011). Recently a Workshop was held by GLOBIS B*4 (GLOBal Infrastructures for Supporting Biodiversity research) to discuss Species Interactions EBVs (February, 26-28, Bari, Italy). Plant-pollinator interactions deserved a lot of attention and REBIPP's work was presented there. As an outcome we expect to define specific EBVs for interactions, and use plant- pollinators as an example, considering pairwise interactions as well as interaction network related variables. The terms in the plant-pollinator data standard under discussion at REBIPP will provide information not only on EBV related with interactions, but also on other four EBV classes: species populations, species traits, community composition, ecosystem function and ecosystem structure. As we said, some EBVs for specific ecosystem functions (e.g. pollination) lay beyond interactions network structures. The EBV 'Species interactions' (EBV class 'Community composition') should incorporate other aspects such as frequency (Vázquez et al. 2005), duration and empirical estimates of interaction strengths (Berlow et al. 2004). Overall, we think the proposed plant-pollinator interaction data standard which is currently being developed by REBIPP will contribute to data aggregation, filling many data gaps and can also provide indicators for long-term monitoring, being an essential source of data for EBVs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollination is considered one of the most important processes for biodiversity conservation (Kremen 2005). Recently, the global community, by means of the Intergovernmental Platform of Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES 2016), and also, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD 2002) recognized the importance of plant-pollinator interactions for ecosystems functioning and sustainable agriculture. The conservation of pollination depends of information about plant-pollinator interactions covering a great diversity of functional and taxonomic groups. Studies show that successful pollination can improve the amount and the quality of plant fecundation and fruit production (Kevan and Imperatriz-Fonseca 2002). However, the success of these actions depends on the knowledge on pollinators, their conservation and interactions with plants and the environment. In order to conserve and manage it, more information needs to be captured about plant-pollinator interactions. Primary data about pollinators is becoming increasingly available online and can be accessed at a number of websites and portals. Many initiatives have also been created to facilitate and to stimulate the dissemination of pollination data, and examples are the Inter- American Biodiversity Information Network - Pollinators Thematic Network - IABIN-PTN (w ww.biocomp.org.br/iabinptn) and the WebBee (www.webbee.org.br) (Saraiva et al. 2003). One important aspect of this trend is the strong reliance on standardized data schemas and protocols (e.g. Darwin Core - DwC and TDWG Access Protocol for Information Retrieval - TAPIR, respectively) that allow us to share and aggregate biological data, among which pollinator data are included. Although plant-pollinator interaction data are critically important to our understanding of the role, importance and effectiveness of (potential) pollinators, they cannot be adequately represented by the current standards for occurrence data (such as DwC). The ways that interaction data are recorded and stored worldwide, as well as their intended use are very diverse. They lack of a common protocol and data schema, that will allow us to aggregate them in web portals and eventually use them to build decision support systems for conservation and sustainable use in agriculture, needs to be addressed. The IABIN-PTN adopted a simple solution to characterize and digitalize plant-pollinator interaction data based on DwC (Cartolano Júnior et al. 2007), allowing the digitalization of many Latin-american collections. Following that work, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) produced a detailed survey of potential descriptors of plant-pollinators interactions. Although the ultimate goal of that work was to propose a data standard, that did not evolve (Cavalheiro et al. 2016). The FAO Global pollination project, adopted in Brazil the same simplified model used by IABIN to digitize plant-pollinator interaction data (Saraiva et al. 2010). Recently many Brazilian scientists gathered around the Brazilian Plant-Pollinator Interactions Network (REBIPP - www.rebipp.org.br) with the aim of developing scientific and teaching activities in the field. The main goals of the network are: generate a diagnosis of plant-pollinator interactions in Brazil; integrate knowledge in pollination of natural, agricultural, urban and restored areas; identify knowledge gaps; support public policy guidelines aimed at the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services for pollination and food production; and encourage collaborative studies among REBIPP participants. To achieve these goals the group has resumed those previous works done under the auspices of the IABIN and FAO projects, and a data standard is being discussed. The ultimate goal is to adopt a standard and develop a database of plant-pollinator data in Brazil to be used by the national community. This proposal of a data standard (depicted in Fig. 1) can serve as a starting point for the definition of a global data standard for plantpollinator interactions under the TDWG umbrella. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CitSci.org is a global citizen science software platform and support organization housed at Colorado State University. The mission of CitSci is to help people do high quality citizen science by amplifying impacts and outcomes. This platform hosts over one thousand projects and a diverse volunteer base that has amassed over one million observations of the natural world, focused on biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability. It is a custom platform built using open source components including: PostgreSQL, Symfony, Vue.js, with React Native for the mobile apps. CitSci sets itself apart from other Citizen Science platforms through the flexibility in the types of projects it supports rather than having a singular focus. This flexibility allows projects to define their own datasheets and methodologies. The diversity of programs we host motivated us to take a founding role in the design of the PPSR Core, a set of global, transdisciplinary data and metadata standards for use in Public Participation in Scientific Research (Citizen Science) projects. Through an international partnership between the Citizen Science Association, European Citizen Science Association, and Australian Citizen Science Association, the PPSR team and associated standards enable interoperability of citizen science projects, datasets, and observations. Here we share our experience over the past 10+ years of supporting biodiversity research both as developers of the CitSci.org platform and as stewards of, and contributors to, the PPSR Core standard. Specifically, we share details about: 1. the origin, development, and informatics infrastructure for CitSci 2. our support for biodiversity projects such as population and community surveys 3. our experiences in platform interoperability through PPSR Core working with the Zo oniverse, SciStarter, and CyberTracker 4. data quality 5. data sharing goals and use cases. We conclude by sharing overall successes, limitations, and recommendations as they pertain to trust and rigor in citizen science data sharing and interoperability. As the scientific community moves forward, we show that Citizen Science is a key tool to enabling a systems-based approach to ecosystem problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trait-based research spans from evolutionary studies of individual-level properties to global patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. An increasing number of trait data is available for many different organism groups, published as open access data on a variety of file hosting services. Thus, standardization between datasets is generally lacking due to heterogeneous data formats and types. The compilation of these published data into centralised databases remains a difficult and time-consuming task. We reviewed existing trait databases and online services, as well as initiatives for trait data standardization. Together with data providers and users participating in a large long-term observation project on multiple taxa and research questions (the Biodiversity Exploratories, www.biodiversity-exploratories.de), we identified a need for a minimal trait-data terminology that is flexible enough to include traits from all types of organisms but simple enough to be adopted by different research communities. In order to facilitate reproducibility of analyses, the reuse of data and the combination of datasets from multiple sources, we propose a standardized vocabulary for trait data, the Ecological Trait-data Standard Vocabulary (ETS, hosted on GFBio Terminology Service, htt ps://terminologies.gfbio.org/terms/ets/pages), which builds upon and is compatible with existing ontologies. By relying on unambiguous identifiers, the proposed minimal vocabulary for trait data captures the different degrees of resolution and measurement detail for multiple use cases of trait-based research. It further encourages the use of global Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) for taxa and trait definitions, methods and units, thereby readying the data publication for the semantic web. An accompanying R-package (traitdata form) facilitates the upload of data to hosting services but also simplifies the access to published trait data. While originating from a current need in ecological research, in the next step, the described products are being developed for a seamless fit with broader initiatives on biodiversity data standardisation to foster a better linkage of ecological trait data and global e-infrastructures for biological data. The ETS is maintained and discussion on terms are managed via Github (https://github.com/EcologicalTraitData/ETS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data schema ABCD (Access to Biological Collection Data version 2.06) is a standard for biological collection units, including living and preserved specimen, together with field observation data. Its extension EFG (Extension for Geosciences) is suitable for sharing and publishing data related to paleontological, mineralogical, and petrological objects. In addition to detailed object descriptions and collection events, ABCD EFG provides finegrained data structures for information on stratigraphy, chemical analyses and host rock composition. The comprehensive EFG was developed in 2006. Since then it has been used by different initiatives, including the publication of collection-related data in domainspecific and interdisciplinary portals such as GBIF, GeoCASe, GFBio and Europeana. The TDWG Paleo Interest Group meeting 2017 will include a focus on the relationship between Darwin Core and ABCD EFG, and following that theme this presentation will give an introduction to the current state of ABCD EFG, its common use cases and an outlook towards the next version ABCD 3.0. We expect that the ABCD EFG terms are suitable for embedding elements into the Darwin Core Paleo Context. Thus, this talk will also initiate the discussion about the most important elements for further use cases from the paleobiological community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]