Species 2000 is a "federation" of biodiversity database organisations, working closely with users, taxonomists and sponsoring agencies. Species 2000 is creating a validated checklist of all the world's species (plants, animals, fungi and microbes), by bringing together an array of global species databases covering each of the major groups of organisms. Each database covers all known species in the group, using a consistent taxonomic system. The participating databases are widely distributed throughout the world and currently number 52. The existing global species databases presently account for about 60% of the total known species, so substantial investment in new databases will be needed for full coverage of all taxa to be achieved. The Catalogue of Life is produced in partnership with the Integrated Taxonomic Information system (ITIS) of North America. The other contributing databases are located in many different countries on all continents. The Catalogue of Life is used by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Encyclopedia of Life (EoL) as the taxonomic backbone to their web portals.