Publications

@article{10.3897/biss.3.37188,
title = {SwissCollNet – A National Initiative for Natural History Collections in Switzerland},
author = {Holger Frick and Pia A Stieger and Christoph Scheidegger},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.3.37188},
doi = {10.3897/biss.3.37188},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
journal = {Biodiversity Information Science and Standards},
volume = {3},
pages = {e37188},
publisher = {Pensoft Publishers},
abstract = {More than 60 million specimens are housed in geological and biological collections in numerous museums and botanical gardens located all over Switzerland. They are of national and international origin. Taken together they form an entity with a high scientific value and international recognition for their contribution to scientific research. Due to the federalistic organisation of Switzerland, natural history collections are located and curated in numerous institutions. So far, no common strategy for digitisation, documentation and long-term data archiving has been developed.
This shortcoming has been widely identified by concerned parties. Under the lead of the Swiss Academy of Sciences, several organisations have assembled information about Swiss natural history collections. They identified measures to be taken to promote the scientific and educational potential of natural history collections in Switzerland (Beer et al. 2019). 
With a national initiative, the Swiss Natural History Collections Network (SwissCollNet) aims to unite Swiss natural history collections under a common vision and with a common strategy. The goal is to promote the collections themselves and to harness the scientific and educational potential of these collections for research and training. SwissCollNet consists of representatives of research, teaching, museums and botanical gardens, the data centers for information on the national fauna and flora, the Swiss Systematics Society and the Swiss node of GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
The initiative aims to foster research on natural history collections. It will provide a single decentralised data infrastructure framework for Swiss research related to natural history. It will help to harmonise nationwide collection data management, digitisation and long-term data archiving. It will facilitate identification of specimens and revision of taxonomic groups. New research techniques, fast-evolving computer technologies and internet connectivity, create new opportunities for deciphering and using the wealth of information housed in Swiss and international collections. 
The development of an agreed strategy and research priorities on a national scale will allow fluent, fluid and permanent collaboration across all Swiss natural history collections by promoting interoperability and unified access to collections as well as creating opportunities for scientific collaboration and innovation. This national approach will create an internationally compatible research data infrastructure, while respecting and integrating regional and decentralized conditions and requirements. Thus, it will maximize the impact for science, policy and society.},
keywords = {data management, digitisation, educational potential, scientific potential, standards, strategy},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}

@article{10.3897/biss.2.25953,
title = {DNAqua-Net or how to navigate on the stormy waters of standards and legislations},
author = {Patricia Mergen and Kristian Meissner and Daniel Hering and Florian Leese and Agnès Bouchez and Alexander Weigand and Sarah Kueckmann},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.2.25953},
doi = {10.3897/biss.2.25953},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
journal = {Biodiversity Information Science and Standards},
volume = {2},
pages = {e25953},
publisher = {Pensoft Publishers},
abstract = {Several national and international environmental laws require countries to meet clearly defined targets with respect to the ecological status of aquatic ecosystems. In Europe, the EU-Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) represents such a detailed piece of legislation. The WFD that requires the European member countries to achieve an at least ‘good’ ecological status of all surface waters at latest by the year 2027. In order to assess the ecological status of a given water body under the WFD, data on its aquatic biodiversity are obtained and compared to reference status. The mismatch between these two metrics then is used to derive the respective ecological status class. While the workflow to carry out the assessment is well established, it relies only on few biological groups (typically fish, macroinvertebrates and a few algal taxa such as diatoms), is time consuming and remains at a lower taxonomic resolution, so that the identifications can be done routinely by non-experts with an acceptable learning curve. Here, novel genetic and genomic tools provide new solutions to speed up the process and allow to include a much greater proportion of biodiversity in the assessment process. further, results are easily comparable through the genetic ‘barcodes’ used to identify organisms.
The aim of the large international COST Action DNAqua-Net (http://dnaqua.net/) is to develop strategies on how to include novel genetic tools in bioassessment of aquatic ecosystems in Europe and beyond and how to standardize these among the participating countries. It is the ambition of the network to have these new genetic tools accepted in future legal frameworks such as the EU-Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC). However, a prerequisite is that various aspects that start from the validation and completion of DNA Barcode reference databases, to the lab and field protocols, to the analysis processes as well as the subsequently derived biotic indices and metrics are dealt with and commonly agreed upon. Furthermore, many pragmatic questions such as adequate short and long-term storage of samples or specimens for further processing or to serve as an accessible reference need also be addressed. In Europe the conformity and backward compatibility of the new methods with the existing legislation and workflows are further of high importance. Without rigorous harmonization and inter-calibration concepts, the implementation of the powerful new genetic tools will be substantially delayed in real-world legal framework applications.
After a short introduction on the structure and vision of DNAqua-Net, we discuss how the DNAqua-Net community considers possibilities to include novel DNA-based approaches into current bioassessment and how formal standardization e.g. through the framework of CEN (The European Committee for Standardization) may aid in that process (Hering et al. 2018, Leese et al. 2016, Leese et al. 2018. Further we explore how TDWG data standards can further facilitate swift adoption of the genetic methods in routine use. We further present potential impacts of the legislative requirements of the Nagoya Protocol on the exchange of genetic resources and their implications for biomonitoring. Last but not least, we will touch upon the rather unexpected influence that the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may have on the bioassessment work in practice.},
keywords = {Bioassessments, e-DNA, GDPR, legislation, metagenomics, Nagoya Protocol, standards, water quality},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}