List of biodiversity databases

This is a list of biodiversity databases. Biodiversity databases store taxonomic information alone or more commonly also other information like distribution (spatial) data and ecological data, which provide information on the biodiversity of a particular area or group of living organisms. They may store specimen-level information, species-level information, information on nomenclature, or any combination of the above. Most are available online.

Specimen-focused databases contain data about individual specimens, as represented by vouchered museum specimens, collections of specimen photographs, data on field-based specimen observations and morphological or genetic data. Species-focused databases contain information summarised at the species-level. Some species-focused databases attempt to compile comprehensive data about particular species (FishBase), while others focus on particular species attributes, such as checklists of species in a given area (FEOW) or the conservation status of species (CITES or IUCN Red List). Nomenclators act as summaries of taxonomic revisions and set a key between specimen-focused and species-focused databases. They do this because taxonomic revisions use specimen data to determine species limits.