Going Global by Going Local: Impacts and Opportunities of Geographically Focused Data Integration

Biodiversity conservation is a global challenge that requires the integration of global and local data. Expanding global data infrastructures have opened unprecedented opportunities for biodiversity data storage, curation, and dissemination. Within one such infrastructure – the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) – these benefits are achieved by aggregating data from over 100 regional infrastructure ‘nodes’. GBIF nodes play a critical role by building and maintaining collaborations that support data sharing and reuse, while also fostering local research, traditional knowledge, innovation, and engagement. Therefore, regional-scale biodiversity infrastructures benefit scientific communities in ways that exceed their core function of contributing to global data aggregation; yet these additional scientific impacts are rarely quantified. To fill this gap, we characterise the scientific impact of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), one of the oldest and largest GBIF nodes, as a case study of a regional biodiversity information facility. Our discussion reveals the multi-faceted impact of the regional biodiversity data infrastructure. We showcase the global importance of such infrastructures, datasets, and collaborations.