The California Islands Biodiversity Information System: Strengthening Conservation by Sharing Information

The 18 islands in the Pacific off the coast of California and Baja California are home to more than 1,200 native plant taxa, many of which are endemic to the islands. The islands are connected by geography, ecology and a shared history of human impacts. As island stakeholders work to protect and restore these islands, the need to share knowledge and resources has become a priority. In 2014, collaborators across all the islands began meeting regularly to discuss shared challenges and opportunities, eventually formalizing the Islands of the Californias Botanical Collaborative (ICBC; aka Islas de Californias: Colaboración Botánica). From there, the California Islands Biodiversity Information System (CalIBIS) was born. Initially developed to house basic information about all taxa on the islands, the database consists of aggregated georeferenced data from across the archipelago. It represents the most complete information about the distribution of various taxa across the islands. The next step is the development of CalIBIS is the rare plant node, which will include detailed occurrence and survey data for rare plants across the archipelago and will be updated annually. In tandem with the development of the rare plant node has been the development of a standardized data collection system for rare plant survey and mapping. The goal is to eventually train all island partners to use shared data collection fields, thus streamlining the curation and analysis of island-wide datasets. By not only sharing our data, but also standardizing collection practices, we are moving toward easier and more effective collaborative conservation.