(Almost) everything you want to know about the GBIF Species API
Today, we are talking about the GBIF Species API. Although you might not use it directly, you probably encountered it while using the GBIF web portal:
- Typing a scientific name in the GBIF Occurrence search.
- Seeing a “Taxon Match Fuzzy” flag.
- Using the Species Name matching tool.
This API is what allow us to navigate through the names available on GBIF. I will try to avoid repeating what you can already find in its documentation. Instead, I will attempt to give an overview and answer some questions that we received in the past.
GBIF Issues & Flags
Outlier Detection Using DBSCAN
GBIF Regional Statistics - 2020
Which tools can I use to share my data on GBIF?
GBIF occurrence license processing
GBIF is now processing occurrence licenses record-by-record.
iNaturalist research-grade observations
Previously all occurrence licenses defaulted to their dataset license (provided by the publisher).
Does Biodiversity Informatics đ Wikidata?
Open online APIs are fantastic! You can use someone else’s infrastructure to create workflows, do research and create products without giving anything in return, except acknowledgement. But wait a minute! Why is everyone not using them? Why do we create our own data sources and suck up the costs in time and money? Not to mention the duplication of effort.
Frictionless Data and Darwin Core
Frictionless data is about removing the friction in working with data through the creation of tools, standards, and best practices for publishing data using the Data Package standard, a containerization format for any kind of data. It offers specifications and software around data publication, transport and consumption. Similarly to Darwin Core, data resources are presented in CSV files while the data model is described in a JSON structure.