The International Compositae Alliance as the Taxonomic Expert Network for Asteraceae.
About six months after the official launch of the Global Compositae Database through the Aphia infrastructure, its content is now being shared with the World Flora Online. The collaboration between these two initiatives has become official through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The World Flora Online welcomes the International Compositae Alliance as the Taxonomic Expert Network for Asteraceae. The Family with between 24000 and 30000 accepted species was identified as a major curatorial gap in our Taxonomic Backbone.
In April 2020, The Global Compositae Database (GCD) – an effort by the International Compositae Alliance – was launched through the Aphia platform, the infrastructure behind the World Register of Marine Species. A data sharing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), the Global Compositae Database and the World Flora Online should minimise duplication of efforts and benefit all through improved curation and mutual feedback.
The set-up of a Memorandum of Understanding with the World Flora Online – and the rescue of the Global Compositae Database — was made possible through support of the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone. LifeWatch, the E‑Science European Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, is a distributed virtual laboratory, which is used for different aspects of biodiversity research. The Species Information Backbone of LifeWatch aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data and at filling the gaps in our knowledge. In addition, it gives support to taxonomic experts by providing them logistic and financial support for meetings and workshops related to expanding the content and enhancing the quality of taxonomic databases.