April 2025 - COL-Users - lists.gbif.org

API Introduction
by Markus Döring 23 Oct '26

23 Oct '26

Dear all, as you all know at the end of last year the Catalogue of Life has moved to a whole new infrastructure and now offers a new and richer API. As I had a few similar requests vie email lately I thought it would be good to give you a quick introduction to get started, while we are still working on better documentation. The basic concept has changed in the sense that the API does not only expose the Catalogue of Life (COL), but all of ChecklistBank (CLB) which hosts a large number of taxonomic or nomenclatural datasets including the sources that we use to assemble the COL. You can read here more about it: https://www.catalogueoflife.org/about/colpipeline The base URL of the API uses Swagger to exposes a rudimentary documentation of all the available REST resources and allows you to test it with real data: https://api.catalogueoflife.org In order to access the latest version of COL you need to use the datasetKey=3LR (note that the swagger generated API docs do not allow strings, please use the currents release key 2242 for testing or curl). Pretty much all calls of interest to you should be scoped under http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/3LR In order to search for a name you could be doing this: http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/3LR/nameusage/search?q=Abies&rank=SP… To get taxon details for a given taxonID this does most of it: Basics: http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/2242/taxon/5QQJ9 Full Infos: http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/2242/taxon/5QQJ9/info To browse the tree you can use the Tree API which in its basic form works like this: Root taxa: http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/3LR/tree Plant Children: http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/3LR/tree/P/children<http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/3LR/tree/P> We now also offer reusable React UI components that you can embed in your own site or application to browse the tree, search and present species pages: https://github.com/CatalogueOfLife/portal-components We have also migrated the previous "legacy" API which you can access with the latest data from https://api.catalogueoflife.org/col/webservice<https://api.catalogueoflife.org/col/webservice?name=Abies%20alba&format=jso…> like this: https://api.catalogueoflife.org/col/webservice?name=Abies%20alba&format=jso… There are a few small differences how we treat references compared to the previous version, otherwise it should work just as before. We do consider this a legacy API and would like to encourage everyone using it still to migrate to our new API above. Please don't hesitate to ask any questions on this list if you want to know more on how to use our API. With best wishes, Markus +++ COL RESOURCES +++ COL Website: http://www.catalogueoflife.org/ COL ChecklistBank: http://data.catalogueoflife.org/ COL ChecklistBank API: http://api.catalogueoflife.org/ COL latest release in API: http://api.catalogueoflife.org/dataset/3LR -- Markus Döring Lead Developer Catalogue of Life Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) mdoering(a)gbif.org<mailto:mdoering@gbif.org> http://www.gbif.org<http://www.gbif.org/>

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TaxonWorks Together 2025 - Registration open and free! (TWT2025 May 6 - 8)
by Deborah Paul 21 Apr '25

21 Apr '25

Greetings COL Community, RE: TaxonWorks Together 2025 <https://together.taxonworks.org/> - Registration open and free! It's May 6 - 8. ‪This year's #TWT2025 offers topics local-to-planetary and relevant to COL contributors. Please see below a few TWT2025 session themes here to entice you to have a look-see and join us. Please check the agenda for speakers and panelists <https://together.taxonworks.org/> and details and times for each session. * taxonomy * data migration * systematic research tools * field stations and collections * collections track disease * research software engineering * TaxonWorks 101 * AI-informatics * software and services * eDNA * geoSpatial data Most sessions are moderated discussions with opportunities for your input. Hear from people that inspire us, and take part in the on-line conversation that pervades throughout. We welcome everyone and look forward to seeing you there. In anticipation, Debbie, for the SFG and TWT2025 /PS -- *please (please) share with your colleagues and students far and wide, thanks!* PPS -- yes there is cross-posting :-)/ -- - Deborah Paul, Biodiversity Informatics Community Liaison - Species File Group (INHS), University of Illinois -- Natural History Collections and Museomics NHCM Editor-in-Chiefhttps://nhcm.pensoft.net -- Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) Past Chair 2021-2022 -- Florida State University Courtesy Appointment -- Species File Group and Eventshttps://speciesfilegroup.org

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Removal of old monthly COL releases
by Markus Döring 14 Apr '25

14 Apr '25

Dear users of the Catalogue of Life, Since we started to use the new checklistbank.org infrastructure COL has released new versions every month since. We have always promised to keep these releases available in ChecklistBank for at least a year, but differently to the Annual Releases, we never planned to keep them forever. Finally we will now start deleting old monthly releases if they have exceeded one year, starting with the oldest releases from 2020-2023. https://www.checklistbank.org/dataset?releasedFrom=3&sortBy=created Both the alias and version of a COL release tells you whether it is a long term supported (LTS) annual release which we will keep forever, or a monthly one. If you need stable links to immutable content, we recommend to use the annual editions of COL. Otherwise identifiers of names in COL are stable and will resolve to the same name in subsequent versions, both monthly and annual. Their status, classification and associated information can change over time though. There will still be the option to download binary archives (coldp & dwca) of all monthly releases of COL once they have been deleted in ChecklistBank: https://download.checklistbank.org/col/ With best wishes, Markus -- Markus Döring GBIF & Catalogue of Life https://www.checklistbank.org https://www.catalogueoflife.org

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