A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Assessing the Landscape of Digital Species Identifiers
Authors: Correia, Ricardo A.; Isaac, Maxim C.
Editors: Balke, Wolf-Tilo; Golub, Koraljka; Manolopoulos, Yannis; Stefanidis, Kostas; Zhang, Zheying; Aalberg, Trond; Manghi, Paolo
Conference name: International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Publication year: 2025
Journal:: Communications in Computer and Information Science
Book title : New Trends in Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries: TPDL 2025 Short Papers and Workshops, Tampere, Finland, September 23–26, 2025, Proceedings
Volume: 2694
First page : 299
Last page: 310
ISBN: 978-3-032-06135-5
eISBN: 978-3-032-06136-2
ISSN: 1865-0929
eISSN: 1865-0937
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-06136-2_29
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-06136-2_29
The potential of leveraging digital data to support biodiversity conservation is widely recognized, yet data retrieval from digital platforms is not straightforward. Species-level digital identifiers, which are unique representations of species in digital platforms, can help to structure, retrieve, and integrate relevant information but their availability across digital platforms remains unclear. We examined digital species identifiers from over 500 digital platforms linked to multiple knowledge domains and assessed their availability for more than 1.5 million species across all major taxonomic groups. Our analysis revealed substantial variation in species representation across platforms. While many species are recognized in digital platforms linked with the life sciences and general knowledge, only a minority is featured in platforms associated with the social sciences, arts and humanities, or technology. Species coverage is also highly uneven between taxonomic groups. Birds, mammals, and flowering plants are relatively well represented, but other taxonomic groups tend to be represented in very few platforms which limits the potential for cross-platform data integration. These findings highlight major gaps in the representation of global biodiversity on digital platforms. Addressing these disparities will enable a more comprehensive, automated, and integrated use of digital data for conservation.
Funding information in the publication:
This work was funded by the Academy of Finland (grant agreements #348352 and #353785) and the KONE Foundation (grant agreement #202101976).
