Database Commons

a catalog of worldwide biological databases

The bacterial metadatabase BacDive (http://bacdive.dsmz.de) has become a comprehensive resource for structured data on the taxonomy, morphology, physiology, cultivation, isolation and molecular data of prokaryotes. With its current release (7/2018) the database offers information for 63 669 bacterial and archaeal strains including 12 715 type strains. During recent developments of BacDive, the enrichment of information on existing strains was prioritized. This has resulted in a 146% increase of database content over the past three years. Especially rich datasets were integrated from 4782 manual annotated species descriptions in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology which yielded standardized phenotypic data for 5468 type strains. Another important improvement of content was achieved through the mobilization of 8977 Analytical Profile Index (API®) test results that constitute physiological data for the identification of 5237 strains. BacDive offers a unique API® data collection with respect to size and diversity. In addition, data on fatty acid profiles and antibiotic susceptibility tests were integrated. A revised graphical user interface and new search tools such as the API® test finder, the TAXplorer, or the Microbial Isolation Source Search significantly improve the user experience.

BacDive-the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase (http://bacdive.dsmz.de) merges detailed strain-linked information on the different aspects of bacterial and archaeal biodiversity. Currently (release 9/2013), BacDive contains entries for 23 458 strains and provides information on their taxonomy, morphology, physiology, sampling and concomitant environmental conditions as well as molecular biology. Where available, links to access the respective biological resources are given. The majority of the BacDive data is manually annotated and curated. The BacDive portal offers an easy-to-use simple search and in addition powerful advanced search functionalities allowing to combine more than 30 search fields for text and numerical data. The user can compile individual sets of strains to a download selection that can easily be imported into nearly all spreadsheet applications.