The Virtual Biodiversity Gardens are a composite online multimedia tool that supports collaborative work for the discovery and comprehension of biodiversity and its roles relative to human activities, aesthetic appreciation and environment. There are several different Virtual Gardens, which are composed by collaborative work of distinct user communities, each being focussed on a particular territory or knowledge mediation purpose, at the coresponding site, zone, region, country….

A VBG is composed of a group of Bits of Biodiversity (BB), that are classified according to a number of taxonomies.  Some of these are scientific classifications -- for example, the Orders of the Living World, types of Ecosystem Services.  Others have a more subjective and contextual character, relating to human perception, appreciation, and use of the component of the living world.  With appropriate access rights to contribute as a User Community member in ePLANETe, any interested person can become an actor in this process of discovery and sharing of insights into our living world:

  • He or she can bring knowledge through adding a new "Bit of Biodiversity";
  • He or she can visit a Garden to explore the different "Bits of Biodiversity" included by other contributors, in order to comprehend biodiversity, its vulnerability and its roles for human society.  Specific subsets of BB can be identified by the exploitation of the filters, and the spatial location of each BB is shown via a scalable map.
  • S/he can explore outwards from the Virtual Biodiversity Gardens via the ePLANETe 'Cross-link' function, to visit other related galleries in the knowledge mediation platform.