EDIT WP5 Platform for Cybertaxonomy

This report describes the methods of inventory completeness assessment developed in the EDIT geoplatform tools and presents a spatial analysis based on ATBI data. It has been compiled by Marcin Gąsior (MIIZPAN) with a generous input from Pere Roca Ristol (CSIC), Alexander Kroupa (MFN), Patricia Mergen (RMCA) and the colleagues from the EDIT developer mailing list. The incompleteness of species inventories due to limited field sampling is considered as an important issue in many biodiversity studies. Biodiversity measures are often biased by undersampling and cannot provide a correct assessment of biodiversity patterns. Moreover, modelling methods cannot supply reliable and useful distribution predictions if they are based on biased and insufficient data.As species distribution information may be insufficient for some taxonomic groups, GIS tools should provide additional functions to facilitate assessing inventory completeness.