IABIN Start-Up Projects to Commence

At the official establishment of the Inter-American Biodiversity Information Network (IABIN) in Brasilia, the World Bank announced it was providing funds for initial development of IABIN projects. Since then, the World Bank has been working with IABIN experts to finalize terms of reference and contracts for selected IABIN start-up projects.

Funds from the World Bank will allow for training of Latin American specialists on the use of Species Analyst.  This software, developed under the guidance of the North American Biodiversity Information Network, predicts species distributions based on information from museum collections at distributed databases. 

Another project will promote development of IABIN by starting an evaluation process of metadata standards being used throughout the hemisphere.  This project on metadata initiatives will examine standards as they relate to biological datasets and develop a distributed catalog system for biodiversity information in Central America.

Funding provided by the World Bank will also support an invasive species pilot project to develop prototype databases on species names, experts, alerts, projects, data, resources and occurrences of invasive vascular plants and freshwater fish throughout the region.  Another pilot project will identify collections of New World biological specimens held in European institutions and produce an on-line directory of the findings, which will be made available to the public.

For additional information or to discuss your participating in any of these projects, please contact barbara_bauldock@usgs.gov (phone 202/208-3808) or elizabeth_martin@usgs.gov (phone 202/208-4062).

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