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ZooKeys published a large taxonomic revision (Talamas et al. 2011) where all occurrence data and the taxon checklist have been published both in text and also as supplementary files in Darwin Core Archive format. Such an approach permits occurrence data to be downloaded, indexed, published through the GBIF data portal and others, used and re-used. The present monograph may serve as a sample to follow. It also may help in fostering the links between the data creators and scholarly publishers.
Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) is an international biodiversity informatics data standard and the preferred format for publishing data through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) network. Each Darwin Core Archive consists of at least three files: (1) one or more data files keeping all records of the particular dataset in a tabular format such as a comma-separated or tab-separated list; (2) the archive descriptor (meta.xml) file describing the individual data file columns used and mapping them to DwC terms; and (3) a metadata file describing the entire dataset which GBIF recommends to be EML (Ecological Metadata Language) 2.1.1 based. The format is defined in the Darwin Core text guidelines. Darwin Core is no longer strictly bound to occurrence data, and together with Dublin Core (on which its ideas are based), it is used by GBIF and others to encode data about organism names, taxonomies and species information.
The Darwin Core Archive dataset of the present paper was simultaneously published in and is also available through the GBIF’s Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) –
http://gbrds.gbif.org/browse/
ZooKeys and PhytoKeys would like to encourage taxonomists to review this revision and consider publishing your own data in conjunction with your manuscript. The journals provide a ready-made solution for supporting this.