BioTIME is a database of biodiversity time series. It is freely accessible for research, education and conservation, with appropriate permissions by data owners. However, many parts of the world, particularly those rich in biodiversity, are underrepresented in BioTIME. There are also many taxa with uneven temporal and spatial coverage. We therefore invite you to contribute your biodiversity time series data to BioTIME, to help fill these data gaps and increase understanding of how biodiversity has changed worldwide.

We strongly believe in giving credit to data collectors, as without the efforts of people collecting data it is impossible for synthesis work to take place. We also believe that science benefits from people sharing data. The BioTIME database is publicly available, and supported by an open-access data paper in which all data contributors have been invited to be co-authors. These contributions will establish BioTIME as the standard database for biodiversity time series analysis. By participating, you can ensure that your data remains available into the future and increase the impact of your work with little additional effort on your part.





Our database is built to clearly recognize and give credit to the original data collectors and data owners (that's you!). Our current data use policy is outlined below, but please get in touch with us if you have data to contribute but are uncomfortable with the current terms of this policy. We will do our best to respect data contributor wishes. If you have data to contribute, please use this template to format your data and metadata, and email them to biotimeproj@st-andrews.ac.uk. We may contact you for additional details on your data or methods if they are not sufficiently described in the original dataset or publication.



Data Use Agreement

Data Sets released to the SWG will be accompanied with a user agreement that specifies the conditions for data use (in accordance with the generally accepted licensing protocols) as follows:


Open Licences for Creative Content

Creative content, such as text, photographs, slides and so on, may be licensed using a Creative Commons Licence.
  1. Public Domain CC0 No rights reserved
  2. Attribution CC-by
  3. Attribution and share-alike CC-by-sa
  4. Attribution and noncommercial CC-by-nc

Open Licences for Databases
  1. Public Domain PDDL
  2. Attribution ODC-by
  3. Attribution and share-alike ODbL
There are variations upon licences in different countries but the hyperlinks used here lead to internationally acceptable protocols of the latest version (4.0).

BioTIME is an open access resource, free to anyone, anywhere in the world to use for education, research or conservation. However, the future of the BioTIME database, and its continued availability as a resource for ecologists around the world, depends on our ability to raise funds to secure it over the coming years. If you will be using BioTIME data in a funded research project, please contribute to our running costs. Or, if you are writing a grant proposal for work that will draw on the BioTIME database, please include a contribution to these running costs in your budget. To contribute, or for advice on wording to be included in a grant application, please contact us here. Your support is greatly appreciated and will be acknowledged on the BioTIME website.


fish art © Amy Deacon

Please cite when using BioTIME

Dornelas M, Antão LH, Moyes F, Bates, AE, Magurran, AE, et al. BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene. Global Ecol Biogeogr. 2018; 27:760 - 786. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12729

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Funding

BioTIME is hosted and based at the University of St Andrews. It grew out of two ERC grants (AdG BioTIME 250189 and PoC BioCHANGE 72744) awarded to Professor Anne Magurran. Please consider donating to support the database and enable further research.

© BioTIME Consortium