Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity: KNB

• DataONE
• NCEAS (National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis)

The Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB) is an international repository intended to facilitate ecological and environmental research. KNB was created to share, discover, access and interpret complex ecological data. Contextual information provided with KNB data allows scientists to integrate and analyze data. The data originate from a highly-distributed set of field stations, laboratories, research sites, and individual researchers. The foundation of the KNB is the detailed metadata provided by researchers, which promotes both automated and manual integration of data into new projects. As part of the KNB effort, data management software is developed in a free and open source manner, so other groups can build upon the tools. The KNB is powered by the Metacat data management system, and is optimized for handling data sets described using the Ecological Metadata Language, but can store any XML-based metadata document.