NBII News

July 2009

NBII Invasive Species Information Node partner Discover Life has launched an online journal called Proceedings of Life that is interactive, peer reviewed, and free to all users. Invasive species, taxonomy, and climate change are just a few of the areas that are anticipated to fall within the scope of this data-rich journal.

June 2009

In a recent effort coordinated by the USGS Geospatial Information Office, the NBII contributed geospatial datasets for inclusion on Data.gov, a high priority initiative of the Obama administration, the purpose of which is to increase public access to high value datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. The USGS provided freely downloadable geospatial datasets to help fulfill a near-term Data.gov goal of 100,000 datasets. The NBII contributed over 700 of approximately 2,000 datasets submitted to this initiative by USGS. Prompt response to the call for data was possible through the NBII Metadata Clearinghouse, a searchable system of records describing scientific research, and through the efforts of the USGS Biology Science Centers that contribute to the Clearinghouse.

The third annual National Pollinator Week is occurring from June 22nd through the 28th. To review a list of events around the United States in celebration of pollinators, see the National Pollinator Week Web site. And be sure to explore the NBII's own extensive pollinator site for more information.

The USGS-NBII is co-sponsoring two events for pollinators: a public symposium, Plight of the Bumble Bees,on June 22 at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. The symposium will be followed by a two-day workshop in which world experts will discuss potential threats to bumble bees. For more information, visit http://pollinators.iabin.net/documents/PlightoftheBumbleBees09.pdf or contact Elizabeth Sellers (703- 648 4385) or <esellers@usgs.gov>.

The North American Butterfly Association’s (NABA) July 4 butterfly count is fast approaching. The new NABA online data entry system, funded in part by the NBII, makes participating easier than ever! For more information about the NBII contribution to this effort, contact Andrea Ostroff at <aostroff@usgs.gov>. For more information on NABA and its butterfly counts, see http://www.naba.org/butter_counts.html.

You can see the Annals of Botany special issue on Ecology and Evolution of Plant-Pollinator Interactions (June 2009) at http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/. To learn more about plant-pollinator interactions, check out the NBII Pollinators Web site http://pollinators.nbii.gov/.

May 2009

The NBII is hosting a protected areas database for the United States. For more information, and access to this national inventory of protected lands, see http://gapanalysis.nbii.gov/PADUS.

Two NBII invasive species scientists recently fielded questions on the United Nations Environment Program Web site. The questions related to invasive species information management issues. http://www.unep.org/experts.

The search has ended for the new NBII search engine, with Vivísimo as the vendor of choice. Stories describing these developments can be found in resource shelf and EarthTimes .

The NBII Bird Conservation Node has helped make the Breeding Bird Atlas Explorer and its new mapping tool a reality. http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bba/.

The NBII Program is administered by the Biological Informatics Program of the U.S. Geological Survey
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