SYNTHESYS 3

Research Directions:

Marine biodiversity

Bioinformatics and biodiversity informatics

Description:

This project has created an accessible, integrated European resource for researchers in the natural sciences in Europe and globally. Building on the success of the previous SYNTHESYS projects, the Network Activity focused on improving collections management of new physical and virtual collections. By focusing the Joint Research Activity on extracting and enhancing data from digitised collections, SYNTHESYS3 increased the accessibility of these 390 million natural history collections. A wide range of services and access – both physical and digital – were provided to a broad range of scientific users (from biological and geological related disciplines) in a consistent and accessible way. The natural history collections, held within the museums and herbaria of Europe, are world-class in terms of their magnitude and taxonomic coverage. They represent a unique resource in Europe as a model of the diversity of life on earth and are a physical dataset enabling users to research how the human activity (including climate change) is having an increasingly negative impact on the diversity and distribution of biodiversity, which is threatening the continued provision of ecosystem services essential to human well-being.