2nd International Workshop on Semantics for Biodiversity (S4BioDiv)

The Workshop will be held on 21-22 October (co-located with the 16th International Semantic Web Conference: ISWC 2017: http://iswc2017.semanticweb.org; Vienna, Austria, October 21-25, 2017). Biodiversity research aims at comprehending the totality and variability of organisms, their morphology, genetics, life history, habitats and geographical ranges, it is usually used to refer to biological diversity at three levels: genetics, species, and ecology. Biodiversity is an outstanding domain that deals with heterogeneous datasets and concepts generated from a large number of disciplines in order to build a coherent picture of the extend of life on earth. The presence of such a myriad of data resources makes integrative biodiversity increasingly important in the life sciences research. However, it is severely strangled by the way data and information are made available. The Semantic Web approach enhances data exchange, discovery, and integration by providing common formats to achieve a formalized conceptual environment. This workshop aims to bring together computer scientists and biologists, working on Semantic Web approaches for biodiversity and related areas such as agriculture or agro-ecology. The goal is to exchange experiences, build a state of the art of realizations and challenges and reuse and adapt solutions that have been proposed in other domains. The workshop focuses on presenting challenging issues and solutions for the design of high quality biodiversity information systems based on Semantic Web techniques.