GBD-M: A comprehensive encyclopedia and interactive platform for global bat biodiversity and multi-omics research

Abstract Background Bats (Chiroptera), comprising over 1,500 species, play crucial ecological roles yet pose significant global biosecurity concerns. However, advances in understanding their ecology, evolution, and epidemiology have been hampered by the fragmentation of biogeographic, functional trait, and multi‑omics data. Results To bridge existing data fragmentation, we developed the Global Bat Biodiversity & Multi‑omics Database (GBD-M) (http://gbd.jxau.edu.cn/batbase), a comprehensive and real-time updating, and interactive knowledge platform. GBD-M uniquely integrates two core dimensions: (1) species-level information for all known bats (n = 1,524), including taxonomy, morphological, life‑history, ecological trait, biogeography, and conservation status; and (2) large-scale molecular resources, comprising over 12,000 genomic and transcriptomic datasets (including 200 assembled genomes and 3,676 transcriptomes), 1,522 microbiome samples, and > 44,000 mitochondrial DNA barcodes. This synthesis creates a foundational resource for cross‑scale analysis. Conclusions GBD‑M serves as both an online encyclopedia and an analytical toolkit, supporting diverse research–from taxonomic identification to adaptive evolution, ecology, conservation, and epidemiology. It thus provides essential infrastructure for probing biodiversity resilience and the drivers of zoonotic spillover.