Biodiversity Informatics

Dear Colleagues,

Biodiversity Informatics can be defined as the application of informatics techniques for improving the management, presentation, discovery, exploration, and analysis of biodiversity data. While apparently a field for informatics scientists, this new discipline requires a thorough knowledge of the complexity of biodiversity data, knowledge of which is the province of biologists. The use of informatics techniques on biodiversity data is as old as informatics itself. For example, the idea of using a standardized language for writing taxonomic descriptions, so as to make them readable by a computer, popped out in 1973. Initially, research in Biodiversity Informatics mainly targeted primary data (e.g., occurrences and natural history specimen data). However, in the last ten years, the focus of researchers has widened. Several efforts started dealing with taxonomies, and aimed to create reliable repositories of scientific names by collecting and organizing environmental data. Also, morphological, ecological, distributional, and molecular data have applications in ecological niche modeling and in the development digital identification tools. Furthermore, the development of common standards for digitalizing and sharing data has assumed much importance.

This Special Issue aims to present some of the most interesting research in the exciting field of Biodiversity Informatics.

Dr. Stefano Martellos
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.