Corresponding author: Rafael B. P. Pinheiro (
Academic editor:
Within biological communities, species interact in a wide variety of ways. Species interactions have always been noted and classified by naturalists in describing living organisms and their ways. Moreover, they are essential to characterize ecological communities as functioning entities.
Biodiversity databases, as a rule, are comprised of species records in certain localities and times. Many, if not most, originated as databases of museum specimens and/or published records. As such, they provide data on species occurrences and distribution, with little functional information. Currently, online databases for species interaction data are being formed or proposed. Usually, these databases set out to compile data from actual field studies, and their design reflects the singularities of particular studies that seed their development. In two online databases: the
Here we intend to contribute to the development of interaction databases, from two different points of view. First, what categories can be effectively applied to field observations of biotic interactions? Second, what theoretical and applied questions do we expect to address with interaction databases? These should be equally applicable to comparisons of studies of the same kind or mode of interaction, and to contrasts between interactions in multimodal studies.
Rafael B. P. Pinheiro
TDWG 2021
RBPP is funded by a Post-doctoral Fellowship Grant 2020/06771-2 from Fapesp.
TML is supported by a Senior Research Fellowship Grant 314133/2020-8 from CNPq.
Categories in the
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Anemone-fish | N | Y |
Plant-ant | A | Y |
Host-parasite | Y | N |
Host-parasitoid | Y | Y |
Predator-prey (Foodwebs) | Y | N |
Plant-herbivore | Y | N |
Pollination | A | N |
Seed dispersal | A | N |
Categories in GloBI (
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Interacts with | -- | undefined |
relate to | -- | undefined |
eat | get eaten by | antagonistic (predator-prey) |
preys on | get preyed on by | antagonistic (predator-prey) |
kill | is killed by | antagonistic (predator-prey) |
parasitize | get parasitized by | antagonistic (host-parasite) |
infect | get infected by | antagonistic (host-parasite) |
visits flowers of | flowers visited by | undefined |
pollinate | get pollinated by | mutualistic service |
spread | get spread by | mutualistic service |
hosts | get hosted by | co-occurrence (neutral) |
is symbiont of | -- | co-occurrence (neutral) |
co-roosts with | -- | co-occurrence (neutral) |