Topical collection information

Topical collection information

In the context of the recently announced French National Plan for Pollinators and the initiation of the French Red List of Bees and Hoverflies, this topical collection aims to streamline the publicly available knowledge of the extraordinary biodiversity of bees, hoverflies, flies, butterflies and other flower-visitors from across all French territories. 

The collection welcomes contributions presenting recent advances in the taxonomy, inventory and ecology of the pollinators in France and the French overseas territories. 

As supporters of the collection, the French GDR Pollinéco and The Bee Observatory (OA) are providing partial subsidies to early-career researchers who wish to publish their data.

Topical collection information

The EU-funded project BiCIKL (Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library) supports free of charge* publications in a dedicated topical collection in the Biodiversity Data Journal, demonstrating advanced publishing methods of linked biodiversity data.

The criteria and requirements for publication are listed here. The authors need to acknowledge the BiCIKL project, Grant No 101007492 in the Acknowledgements section.

BiCIKL is dedicated to building a new community of key research infrastructures, researchers and citizen scientists by using linked FAIR biodiversity data at all stages of the research lifecycle, from specimens through sequencing, imaging, identification of taxa, etc., to final publication in novel, re-usable, human-readable and machine-interpretable scholarly articles. Achieving a culture change in how biodiversity data are being identified, linked, integrated and re-used is the mission of the BiCIKL consortium. By doing so, BiCIKL is to help increase the transparency, trustworthiness and efficiency of the entire research ecosystem.

In the Author's notes to the Editor, the authors will need to make a reference to the condition(s) their work complies with the requirements and expectations of the BiCIKL project, which are briefly outlined here. Likewise, they will need to abide by the community-agreed standards for terms, ontologies and vocabularies used in biodiversity informatics. 

The collection welcomes taxonomic and other biodiversity-related research articles, data papers, software descriptions, and methodological/theoretical papers. These should demonstrate the advantages and novel approaches in accessing and (re-)using linked biodiversity data. 

The authors need to acknowledge the BiCIKL project, Grant No 101007492 in the Acknowledgements section.

* The publication fee (APC) is waived for standard-sized manuscripts (up to 40,000 characters, including spaces) normally charged by BDJ at € 650. Authors of larger manuscripts will need to cover the surplus charge (€10 for each 1,000 characters above 40,000). See more about the APC policy at Biodiversity Data Journal, or contact the journal editorial team at: bdj@pensoft.net.

Topical collection information

Azores is an isolate volcanic archipelago located in the Atlantic which belongs to the Macaronesia biogeographical region and is among the richest regions concerning fungi, plant and animal diversity in Europe. Currently the total number of terrestrial taxa (species and subspecies) in the Azores is estimated of about 6,164. The total number of terrestrial endemic species and/or subspecies from the Azores is about 452 (411 species). Concerning the marine organisms, the listed the most updated list from 2010a, listed bout 1,883 taxa belonging to 16 Phyla.

The aim of this thematic collection is to collate all the publications dealing with the taxonomic diversity of Azorean terrestrial and marine biota including mostly the categories “Research Article”, “Taxonomic Paper” and “Data Paper”, but also “Alien Species Profiles” and “Species Conservation Profiles”

Topical collection information

Topical collection information

The German Barcode of Life initiative (GBOL) aims at creating a DNA barcode library of German organisms. The third phase, "GBOL III: Dark Taxa", focuses on little known or unknown groups of insects in Germany, in particular Diptera and parasitoid Hymenoptera. GBOL III: Dark Taxa is a joint project with partners from three major German natural history institutions in Bonn (Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig), Munich (SNSB–Zoologische Staatssammlung München) and Stuttgart (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart). Further partners are the University of Würzburg and the Entomological Society Krefeld. Starting from July 2020, 12 PhD students are tackling the taxonomy of selected groups of poorly known Diptera and parasitoid Hymenoptera using an integrative taxonomic approach that that builds on DNA barcoding and morphology but employs also other methods. Further work packages include employing HTS techniques to estimate the role of cryptic parasitoids during outbreaks of pest species, establishing a platform for using OTU based data and developing pipelines for poor-quality samples and taxonomics approaches. The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant ID: 01LI1901). For additional information see https://bolgermany.de/home/gbol3/.

Topical collection information

This Collection of the BDJ will report original results from recent biodiversity recording and survey work undertaken in Cuc Phuong National Park, northern Vietnam, under the framework of the VIETBIO project. The issue will consists of a “main” cover paper characterizing the study area and general project approach and activities, followed by individual papers for separate higher taxa as studied during the project, and some concluding summary and outlook. The main purpose is to make primary biodiversity records openly available including several new and interesting findings for this biodiversity-rich conservation area. All individual (taxonomic) contributions with their respective primary records are expected to provide useful baselines for further taxonomic, phylogenetic, ecological, and conservation-related studies on the respective taxa, and thus will be maintained as separate datasets including separate GUIDs also for further updating. 

VIETBIO ["Innovative approaches to biodiversity discovery and characterization in Vietnam"] is a bilateral German-Vietnamese research and capacity building project focused on the development and transfer of new methods and technology towards an integrated biodiversity discovery and monitoring system for Vietnam. Dedicated field training and testing of innovative methodologies was undertaken in Cuc Phuong National Park as part of and with support from the project, which led to the new biodiversity data and records to be made available in this issue.

VIETBIO is a collaboration between the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science (MfN), the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum, Free University of Berlin (BGBM), and the Vietnam National Museum of Nature (VNMN), the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR), the Southern Institute of Ecology (SIE), as well as the Institute of Tropical Biology (ITB), which all institutions under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST).

The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) since 2017 (grant ID: 01 DP17052).

More information you can find on our website: https://bioseasia.org/vietbio.

Topical collection information

The Italian National Recovery and Plan supports the creation of five National Centers dedicated to frontier research related to technological areas consistent with the priorities of the European research agenda and with the contents of the National Research Plan 2021-2027. One of these is the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC).

The Vision of NBFC is to promote the sustainable management of Italian biodiversity in order to improve the planet’s health and return beneficial effects, essential for all people. The general mission of the Consortium is to create an extended national network of universities, research centers, associations, and other private and societal stakeholders to take effective and immediate action to halt the loss of biodiversity and the impairment of its delivered ecosystem services while enhancing a sustainable use of biodiversity-derived resources and new job opportunities. In concrete terms, the NBFC aims at addressing interdisciplinary and frontier research and innovation activities devoted to the monitoring, conservation, restoration and valorization of Italian biodiversity.

In the context of the research action promoted by the NBFC, this topical collection aims to favor the production and sharing of knowledge of the extraordinary biodiversity of arthropods present on the Italian territory. The collection welcomes contributions presenting recent advances in the taxonomy, faunistics and ecology of any group of both terrestrial and aquatic arthropods.

Topical collection information

Topical collection information

The Special issue “Antarctic and Southern Ocean biodiversity” aims to celebrate the wide biodiversity of the Antarctic and Sub Antarctic region in the terrestrial and marine realms.

The (sub)Antarctic and Southern Ocean are host to a unique biodiversity. Due to the remoteness and harsh environment this biodiversity often remains poorly described despite similar treats as the rest of the globe.

The SCAR Antarctic Biodiversity Portal is a community effort that supports the publication of Biodiversity data in accordance with the FAIR Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and the provisions of the Antarctic treaty System (scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be exchanged and made freely available).

Topical collection information

Topical collection information

LifeWatchGreece Special Collection highlights the key contributions to the large-scale European LifeWatch Research Infrastructure, whose ultimate goal is to model Earth’s biodiversity based on large-scale data, to build a vast network of partners, and to liaise with other high-quality and viable research infrastructures. The present series of papers effectively communicates the project’s outcomes, while opening up to the scientific community, the broader domain of biodiversity management and potential collaborators.