In a world of distributed knowledge and data the Web Service technology, which allows applications to access and use data curated elsewhere in the world, is becoming increasingly important. Although being a core component of a worldwide biodiversity informatics infrastructure, current Web Services are still little coordinated and often poorly and inconsistently documented. A common strategy for the discovery and use of Web Services is needed.

A global registry for biodiversity-related services will help to overcome many of the existing shortcomings. It will help potential users to discover services and to understand their functions, interfaces, behaviour and availability. Furthermore, it will enable service providers to increase service visibility and may encourage them to adhere to common minimum standards.

We will discuss examples for the heterogeneity of services and the resulting problems. The BiodiversityCatalogue (www.biodiversitycatalogue.org), implemented by the EU 7^th Framework Programme project BioVeL (www.biovel.eu), will be presented as a suitable candidate for a global registry for biodiversity related services. Its main functionalities (discover, register, annotate and monitor) will be explained, also by exploring its service API which makes it a service on its own. In addition, we will discuss ideas for further enhancements as well as the need for content curation which becomes urgent with an increasing number of registered services.