About TaiCOL

Catalogue of Life in Taiwan (TaiCOL) is a database that collects and integrates information about species in Taiwan and provides the species checklist. It was originally named "Taiwan Biodiversity National Information Network" (TaiBNET). The establishment of the database can be traced back to the Convention on Biological Diversity, as Article 17 requires contracting parties to promote the exchange of all publicly available information on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. To align with the "Biodiversity Promotion Plan" promulgated by the Taiwan Executive Yuan in 2001, National Science and Technology Council commissioned Academia Sinica to integrate Taiwan’s biodiversity information and build a database from 2002 to 2004. TaiCOL website was established and opened to the public in 2003. Since 2006, project funds have been supported by the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (formerly Forestry Bureau). The checklist has been continuously revised and gradually expanded with synonyms, Chinese common names, references, native/exotic/conservation attributes and other species-related information. Species name codes have been released to all domestic large biodiversity databases as data backbones or for data exchange.