Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility (CBIF)

Notice

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Priorities

In support of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Canada is exploring new ways to improve the organization, exchange, correlation, and availability of primary data on biological species of interest to Canadians. By enhancing access to these data, CBIF provides a valuable resource that supports a wide range of social and economic decisions including efforts to conserve our biodiversity in healthy ecosystems, use our biological resources in sustainable ways, and monitor and control pests and diseases.

CBIF provides the following tools to help users find the information they need.

Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)

Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is a catalogue of common and scientific names and their synonyms that will eventually include all species found in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Search result pages for individual species include the species nomenclature, synonyms, common names and the taxonomic hierarchy (genus, order, family, etc.). In addition, links to resources automatically search on the pertinent terms for the species you select.

Species Access Network

Species Access Network is the Canadian component of a global project to provide Internet access to information associated with the billions of specimens housed in the world's natural history collections. The Canadian network currently incorporates collection records from several repositories; many more will be added over the next few years.

Users can search these collections by species name, source collection, collector, or location.

If you have a specimen database you would like added to Species Access Network, please contact aafc.cbif-scib.aac@canada.ca.

Species Bank

Species Bank includes a collection of electronic resources that provide detailed information to support the identification of Canadian species including descriptive information, photographs, distribution maps, and more.