Font Size: 

Edaphobase is a non-commercial data warehouse on soil organisms, integrated in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility network. Up to now it includes data on Chilopoda, Collembola, Diplopoda, Enchytraeidae, Gamasina, Isopoda, Lumbricidae, Nematoda, and Oribatida. This data warehouse combines data on taxonomy, zoogeography and ecology of these organisms in a comprehensive manner. Data are derived from publications, unpublished results of field studies (theses, reports) and collection data from German museums and research institutions. Data parameters (entities) comprise up-to-date taxonomic thesauri, geographical references, ecological indices, soil composition, vegetation, meteorological data, sampling, and extraction methods, quantity of collected organisms, identification methods, preparation techniques and behavioural data. At present, the focus is on Germany and neighbouring countries, but data from other European countries can be incorporated in the future. Edaphobase data is freely accessible via a web application and while still under further development, already offers a wide range of tools for data inclusion (data-input client, GIS-tool, semi-automatic literature analysis) and data exploration. We will present simple queries as well as more sophisticated analyses of different data groups that may elucidate the potential of Edaphobase as an analysis tool for soil organism data.