TDWG

TDWG, short for Taxonomic Databases Working Group, is an international community that develops and promotes standards to enable interoperable biodiversity information. It operates under the umbrella of Biodiversity Information Standards and brings together museums, research institutions, data centers, and software developers to create specifications, vocabularies, and best practices for data exchange.

The organization coordinates the development and maintenance of widely used biodiversity data standards and related documentation. Working groups draft or refine terms, models, and encoding rules that allow disparate data to be discovered, integrated, and reused across platforms and projects. TDWG standards are designed to be openly available and openly developed, with governance by volunteers who contribute via working groups and annual meetings.

Key TDWG standards include Darwin Core, a widely adopted set of terms for recording biodiversity occurrence, taxon names, and related data; Audubon Core, which defines metadata for digital media associated with biodiversity records; and ABCD (Access to Biological Collection Data), used for detailed specimen and collection data. Other standards and vocabularies cover geographic, temporal, and event data, as well as taxonomic concept relationships.

TDWG activities emphasize collaboration with global biodiversity initiatives, alignment with related standards, and community education about data interoperability. The group publishes specifications, example datasets, and implementation guidance, and it maintains channels for discussion and feedback. TDWG standards are widely used by major data portals such as GBIF and numerous museum and herbarium databases, supporting data discovery and reuse across the biodiversity informatics community.