A SHAREWARE DATABASE ON INVASIVE ALIEN SPECIES

The Brazilian database on invasive alien species developed by the Universidad Nacional del Sur, in Argentina, and by the Horus Institute and The Nature Conservancy in Brazil, has been offered as a free product for other countries in the process of compiling data on biological invasions.

With support from the Inter-American Invasive Species Information Network (I3N), the database was structurally improved to facilitate interaction with end users and translated from Portuguese to English and Spanish. Operational manuals are also available in the three languages.

If you are interested in using this database in your country, please fill in the registration form (click the right button here and choose "save as" to download the Mircrosoft Word file) and send it to contato@institutohorus.org.br. You will receive the database by email, along with the corresponding manual in the language you choose. Please let us know if you have any restrictions in the size of email attachments. If you do, you might prefer to download the manual from this page. The database will only function in Microsoft Access 2000 or superior versions.

The database needs to be customized for each country, since some data is country-specific. We will ask you to provide some data and then prepare it for you.

It is only functional in Access 2000 or a superior version.

DOWNLOAD THE MANUALS

The manuals are available for download in Microsoft Word format, compacted through Winzip:

Portuguese version (3.711 Kb)

Spanish version (3.158 Kb)

English version (3.053 Kb)

DOWNLOAD PROBLEM SOLVING FILES

The error files are zipped together and available for problem-solving regarding Access libraries. Only use them if you need to, and according to instructions in the manual.

Error_files.zip

USE OF THE DATABASE

This database is currently being used in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Venezuela. Mexico and Colombia have incorporated the fields into their larger biodiversity databases in order to facilitate data exchange in the future.

The advantage of having several countries use the same database platform lies in easy communication and data exchange in the future. This can greatly contribute to the conservation of natural resources and wild habitats, especially for countries sharing borders.

The Nature Conservancy, the Horus Institute, the Universidad del Sur from Argentina and I3N are promoting training workshops on invasive alien species and the use of this database in several countries in South and Central America. If you are interested, please contact us.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We cheerfully thank all the technical advice received from:

Michael Browne, Global Invasive Species Database Manager, Invasive Species Specialist Group, World Conservation Union - IUCN, New Zealand
Philip Thomas, Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk, USGS, USA

INSTITUTIONAL AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Andrea Grosse, I3N Project Manager, IABIN - NBII / USGS
without whom this work would not have been accomplished!
The Nature Conservancy of Brazil, for investment and office space

DATABASE DEVELOPMENT AND MANUALS
Mónica Sonaglioni, Programmer, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina
João Scucato, Programmer, Brazil
Sergio Zalba, Professor, Universidad del Sur, Argentina
Silvia R. Ziller, Ecologist, The Horus Institute/The Nature Conservancy, Brazil
Rafael Dudeque Zenni, Student in Forestry, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil