Who knows Globorotalia mentum? – Making micropalaeontological data FAIR

• Main Authors: Jonkers, Lukas, Huber, Robert, Strack, Anne, Kucera, Michal
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: NFDI4Earth; NFDI4Earth Pilot; planktonic foraminifera; taxonomy; FAIR; Planktonic foraminifera
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/8123935; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8123935

Many micropalaeontological studies rely on merging data from different sources. Apart from accessibility issues and a myriad of different data formats, reusability is hindered because micropalaeontological data are semantically complex. This is because of the existence of different taxonomic schools and evolving taxonomic insights, which both render standardisation difficult. As a consequence reusing micropalaentological data is cumbersome, even when they are findable, accessible and interoperable. Moreover, semantic complexity leads to confusion and archiving errors, further complicating data reusability. Within the framework of the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) we aim to develop tools and processing pipelines to harmonise taxonomic data. Here we report on common problems associated with the standardisation of taxonomic data identified in a large number of micropalaeontological datasets publicly available at PANGAEA. We present possible solutions to increase the reusability of legacy data and propose guidelines for archiving of new datasets. This poster is intended as a starting point for discussion. Our assessment focussed on planktonic foraminifera because of the relatively simple taxonomy of this group. However, we explicitly invite feedback from all data generators and data users from the micropalaeontological community to discuss solutions that work for everyone and can be applied across different taxonomic groups and different research fields. This work has been funded by the German Research Foundation (NFDI4Earth Pilots 1st cohort, DFG project no. 460036893, https://www.nfdi4earth.de/) within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI, https://www.nfdi.de/).