SGER: Development of a Data Exchange Format for Species Related Data: Feasibility Study

American Type Culture Collection, Manassas VA

Investigators

Abstract

Information about the species of the earth resides in a wide variety of databases scattered over the earth. Four institutions that each support environmental and species information across many taxa will do a feasibility study on the development of software tools that will enable cross platform querying and virtual integration of the data. The team will use common data exchange standards to insure the broad utility of their developed software. The consortium will develop this prototype infrastructure framework for retrieving and disseminating comprehensive information on species of the world. This prototype can then be extended to other species related data resources and may form the basis for future development of a widely accepted standard for species data exchange. All of the documents generated will be available on the Species2000 web site.