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Edit on GitHubAccessing GBIF-mediated data
There are two main points of access to GBIF-mediated data: GBIF.org and the Application Programming Interface (API) services. Using the website requires no programming experience and allows for quick and easy search, filter and download functions for GBIF-mediated data, as well as a range of additional tools and metrics that are not available through API services. API services allow continued access to GBIF-mediated data through other systems and can be the basis for the development of tools that allow for the interrogation of the data. Examples include a number of R packages, such as rgbif and CoordinateCleaner, as well as more specialized tools that allow for more specific use cases, such as GeoCat for Red List assessments.
What is available to me?
Through the search functions on the website, users can access data that can either be directly downloaded through GBIF or accessed from the original sources following links that GBIF provides.
| Remember that as a data user you should read and agree with the terms of the GBIF Data User Agreement that include correctly citing the use of GBIF-mediated data. |
The data available to you are:
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Primary biodiversity data - occurrence, checklist and sampling event data that is provided to users through the one of the 3 download formats:
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Simple: Tab delimited CSV. Only contains the data after GBIF interpretation. No multimedia included.
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Darwin Core Archive: The Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) contains both the original data as the publisher provided it and the GBIF interpretation. Links (but not files) to multimedia included.
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Species list: Tab delimited CSV with the distinct list of names in the search result and as a map visualization of the data.
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A range of metrics are provided for countries and regions, data publishers, datasets and data searches that provide taxonomic breakdowns, trends in data collection and highlight data quality issues. For countries, these metrics can be also be downloaded in the form of a PDF activity report.
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Searchable database of publications that have used GBIF-mediated data.
Searches can be performed on the occurrences, species, datasets, publishers and resources, and each search function carries a set of filters that allow for more refined searching and additional data associated with the data, for example, images, can be found in tabs associated with the search.