Tuesday 18 February 2025
The ITINERIS project is coordinated by the CNR (National Research Council). It started in November 2022, and during 30 (+6) months will carry out an ensemble of cross-disciplinary actions across the different environmental sub-domains, with the main aim to build the network of the Italian environmental Research Infrastructures, connect it to the user community and establish access, trough the ITINERIS HUB, to the vast array of knowledge, data, analytical tools, and service produced by the participating RIs.
More info: https://itineris.cnr.it/news/
Thursday 30 January 2025
by Della Rocca G, Abdoun F, Emiliani G, Danti R, Arcidiaco L, Chiapparini M, Garcia Palacios Z, Pandin M, Gardin L, Gardumi G, Prada O, Moya Sanchez B, Moya Sanchez J, Cherubini P
Until the early 1800s in Europe, there was skepticism regarding the existence of a mythical and elusive forest believed to grow in the heart of the Sahara Desert. Those who inspired the idea faced significant criticism. In the Western countries, it was often dismissed as imaginary, fanciful, or impossible. However, for the inhabitants of the Tassili n'Ajjer plateau in southern Algeria and their ancestors, this forest was an ancient and tangible reality. Even today, some remnants of their homes, doors, and everyday objects used by the Tuareg people are made from the wood of a tree they refer to as "Tarout", known scientifically as Cupressus dupreziana A. Camus. [in Italian]
See the related dataset: https://www.gbif.org/dataset/18e92f1b-5474-4e33-a782-63ae8d276827
More info: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/389735649
Monday 27 January 2025
Hosted by our colleagues from the University of Tartu from 21-22 January 2025, DiSSCo’s latest technical workshop is titled "DiSSCo Data Management Plan for Machine Actionability and Standards for Taxon Hypotheses". Day 1 focused on DiSSCo’s Data Management Plan for machine actionability. The talk provided an overview and discussion of DiSSCo Transition deliverable D3.3, followed by a demonstration of DMP implementation on the PlutoF platform. Day 2 of the DiSSCo Transition workshop on DiSSCo’s DMP and Standards for Taxon Hypotheses focused on the standards aimed to provide a better understanding of the Taxon Concept Schema - or TCS - and the significant modifications introduced by the TCS 2 Task Group (Klazenga and Liljeblad, 2024). The workshop explored how taxonomic circumscriptions can be expressed in TCS 2, focusing on how it supports the characterisation and practical application of DNA-based THs.
More info: https://www.dissco.eu/dissco-transition-dmp-standards-taxon-hypotheses/
Monday 27 January 2025
The inaugural ceremony of the Winter School Interdisciplinary Biodiversity 2025 took place today at the Sala Marino Berengo of Ca’ Foscari University. This interdisciplinary training program involves 30 young researchers, graduate and postgraduate students, from all over the world, selected by a scientific committee composed of scientists and humanists from the CNR and Ca’ Foscari University. The Winter School is organized by the School for International Education of Ca’ Foscari University in collaboration with the Institute of Marine Sciences of the National Research Council (CNR-ISMAR) and sponsored by the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC).
Thursday 12 December 2024
The CNR-ISMAR DiSSCo WG developed this manual as part of Activity 6.6 National network of the aquatic science collection in the Italian Integrated Environmental Research Infrastructures System -ITINERIS Project. This guideline suggests a procedure for managing and harmonising the metadata associated with the physical specimens of the aquatic natural collections preserved at the Institute of Marine Sciences (CNR-ISMAR). Natural collections are archives containing a large amount of data from various research fields, such as zoology, botany, ecology, biogeography, physiology, geology, paleontology, etc. The metadata harmonisation of physical samples, following international reference standards, and creating a digital sample will make them usable for national and international initiatives, also contributing to the increase of the DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections, www.dissco.eu) Italian community in the natural science collections management
More info: https://doi.org/10.26383/CNR-ISMAR.2024.10
Thursday 14 November 2024
On November 14, 2024, a meeting of the UOs DiSSCo ITINERIS at Botanical Garden of the University of Florence, organized by the OU UNIFI-SMA. Eighteen people of the DiSSCo-ITINERIS staff (from CNR-ISMAR-VE, CNR-IRSA-BO, CNR-IBBR-BA, CNR-IBBR-FI, CNR-IRSA-VB, CNR-IRSA-TA, UNIFI-SMA) were present either in-person or online, and took part to the discussions. The following topics have been discussed: (i) procedure and status of digitalization of collections on GBIF; (ii) creation of the DiSSCo-ITINERIS Portal on GBIF; (iii) drafting of shared standard data policy for DiSSCo-IT. Moreover, Dr. Eleonora Fornaro (CNR-IBBR-BA) has illustrated the content of the ITINERIS course: "Access to Research Infrastructures: process and Modalities", which she participated in on Oct 24-25, 2024, in Rome, Italy.
More info: https://www.sma.unifi.it/vp-244-orto-botanico.html
Wednesday 30 October 2024
This workshop, co-organised within the DiSSCo Transition project, aimed to discuss and prioritise next steps in developing the core infrastructure after completion of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of the DiSSCo core infrastructure. The workshop included a demo of the current state of the MVP and an outline of options for further development with backlog and use cases, after which an open discussion took place. The MVP is intended for early adopters and will include around two million digital specimens but this may be extended shortly after the launch of the MVP to cater to the needs of identified early adopters or to test the infrastructure with a larger variety of specimen data, towards full operation in 2026.
More info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91aHnKk7OIE
Monday 14 October 2024
DiSSCo has just made public its FAIR Research Data Management Playbook, designed as a template to help organizations implement best practices in managing research data following the FAIR principles. The playbook is a practical guide to make research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) across various stages of the data lifecycle. The playbook provides a flexible structure that you can adapt to your organization’s specific data management needs. It’s not a strict policy document but a living resource that can evolve with your projects, data types, and technologies.
More info: https://dissco.github.io/fairplaybook/
Wednesday 17 April 2024
The Climate Downscaling Tool (ClimateDT) is a geo-web service designed to downscale various climatic variables and indices from multiple climate scenarios. The system operates on a 1 km grid. It utilizes a combination of the Climatic Research Unit Time-Series (CRU-TS) for historical climate data (from 1901 to the present) and the UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) dataset for future projections (from the present to 2098). It employs spatial interpolation methods, such as bilinear interpolation and inverse distance weighting, along with a dynamic lapse rate adjustment, to facilitate scale-free queries across Europe. The service is freely available to everyone at the URL reported below.
More info: https://www.ibbr.cnr.it/climate-dt/
Monday 09 October 2023
As DiSSCo moves forward to its construction phase, the impact of the future Research Infrastructure is starting to be noticeable. The first solid steps of DiSSCo's business model for a future single European network of natural sciences collections is visible in services such as ELViS, DiSSCovery and other innovations based on the concept of Digital Extended Specimen. The DiSSCo's new corporate video helps understand how DiSSCo RI will open a new frontier for biodiversity research, tackling the following topics: (i) Global threats to biodiversity demand a new approach to biodiversity research. (ii) DiSSCo, a new model for Natural Sciences Collections. (iii) The Digital Extended Specimen, technical cornerstone of DiSSCo. (iv) Bringing Artificial Intelligence into the equation. (v) A fundamental shift in biodiversity research in Europe. Find out more about ELViS, DiSSCovery and other DiSSCo services: https://www.dissco.eu/services/ Get the latest technical posts about the design of DiSSCos Infrastructure: https://dissco.tech/ Preview of experimental services /demonstrators by the DiSSCo community: https://dissco.tech/labs/ Code hosting for DiSSCo software, version control and collaboration: https://github.com/DiSSCo
More info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpuXxZO-8oc
Wednesday 07 June 2023
Longyearbyen, Svalbard, 6-7 June 2023 - The Svalbard Global Seed Vault has welcomed 40,507 new seed samples from nine genebank depositors, including collections from Latvia, Morocco, Taiwan, the USA, the Netherlands, Israel, Poland, Zambia, and Italy. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Vault, and with these new deposits from nine institutions—comprising international, regional, and national genebanks, as well as smaller collection holders—the total collection has surpassed 1.25 million seed samples. The Institute of Biosciences and BioResources from Bari, Italy (CNR-IBBR) has deposited seeds for the first time, becoming the 99th genebank to utilize the Seed Vault as a secure storage option for their seed samples. “We are pleased to back up our oldest collection, which dates back to our first collecting missions in the 1970s, when many of these accessions have since become extinct. Safeguarding agro-biodiversity is fundamentally important for the future of humanity, which depends on agriculture and food. Preserving and providing seeds to scientists and breeders is an increasingly vital and urgent need,” says Gaetano Laghetti of the CNR-IBBR in Italy.
More info: https://www.seedvault.no/2023/10/03/securing-the-foundation-of-our-food-supply-at-18-celsius/
Monday 12 December 2022
The Distributed System of Scientific Collections is a new world-class Research Infrastructure (RI) for Natural Science Collections. The DiSSCo RI aims to create a new business model for one European collection that digitally unifies all European natural science assets, sharing common access, curation, policies, and practices across countries while ensuring that all the data complies with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable data).
More info: https://www.dissco.eu
Thursday 26 November 2015
The cataloging and research activities of the Florence Herbarium are showcased in the Florintesa video. Herbaria serve as places of exploration and discovery, observation and conservation. They are networks of knowledge and exchange, vital repositories of biodiversity and beauty. Herbaria collect stories about people, plants, and places, as well as journeys and passions - what can be described as "Botanical Loves".
More info: https://www.sma.unifi.it/cmpro-v-p-665.html
