Accessing and downloading species information | online practical
Organised by the Data Use Club at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Find out more about the Data Use Club below and its opportunities for GBIF users and learners.
GBIF—the Global Biodiversity Information Facility—is an international network and data infrastructure funded by the world's governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth.
Many users come to GBIF.org in order to access occurrence records (the observation or collection of a specimen at a given time and place). They can also access information about species: their scientific names, taxonomy, and associated data like vernacular names or whether they are invasive in a given country.
This practical session will focus on accessing and downloading information about taxa.
- The first part will focus on the data from GBIF with an overview of what is available on the website and what can be accessed via the API.
- The second part will focus on accessing data from ChecklistBank.
>> Register for the practical session
About the Data Use Club at GBIF
The club shares, showcases, and supports data use across the GBIF network. "The Data Use Club is a space that promotes the interaction between data users and provides them with tools for developing skills in data use, no matter where they are in the world."
- The club regularly invites anyone who is interested to its training seminars and practical sessions like that advertised above. You might also be interested in recordings of previous events, for example an introduction to GBIF, a review of data quality, and an introduction to the API.
- For its community, the club offers both a forum for questions related to data use, and a mailing list for API users.
- Learners might be interested in
- the self-paced training on biodiversity data use. It is also available in Spanish and in French.
- a DataCamp license for GBIF users, available at no cost to learners. These donated licenses are available for teams and individuals. They grant access to over 450 online courses in topics like Python, R and SQL: skills to help you undertake research or projects related to biodiversity, environment, health or social sciences. Apply for a license through the online form.
- the self-paced training on biodiversity data use. It is also available in Spanish and in French.
>> Find out more about the Data Use Club
Photo by Tony Rebelo on iNaturalist: Southern white rhinozeros (Ceratotherium simum ssp. simum) in South Africa. In 2024, GBIF celebrated the 10,000th paper citing GBIF data: "Their findings suggest that temperature changes are likely to have significant impacts on rhinos, concluding that strengthened conservation strategies remain critical for the survival of both [rhinoceros] species." Find out more in the official news release.