The Operational Directorate Natural Environment (OD Nature) of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), the WoRMS steering committee and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) have established a Memorandum of Understanding to organise the exchange of taxonomic checklist data between the aquatic species registers FADA (Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment) and WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species).
 
The agreement aims to increase the efficiency of the management of taxonomic data and avoid duplication of effort, ensuring that taxonomic experts only have to provide their input through either FADA or WoRMS, upon which data can automatically be exchanged between the partner databases.
 
Ensuring and enhancing the operability between WoRMS and FADA through the development of web services and tools to facilitate the data exchange and perform data quality control, was key in the BELSPO Brain project AquaRES (Aquatic species Register Exchange and Services). To continue the collaboration that was set up during this project in the long term, the FADA-WoRMS data exchange agreement was established. The partners have agreed to encourage the specialists in their network to document species as being marine, brackish, freshwater or terrestrial organisms when incorporating them in their checklists. They will also exchange data in an agreed standard format, while clearly acknowledging the contributions of the partner initiative.
 
Furthermore, this agreement also contributes to the continued development of the LifeWatch Taxonomic Backbone (LW-TaxBB), that also aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data, at filling the gaps in our knowledge and at avoiding duplication of efforts.