Earth's Species To Be Cataloged On the Web 147
Matt clues us in to a project to compile everything known about all of Earth's 1.8 million known species and put it all on one Web site, open to the world. The effort is called the Encyclopedia of Life. It will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. The site was unveiled today in Washington where the massive effort was announced by some of the world's leading institutions. The project is expected to take about 10 years to complete; it starts out with committed funding for 1/4 of that."
Isn't it already a part of Wikipedia? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Isn't it already a part of Wikipedia? (Score:5, Informative)
What About... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Isn't it already a part of Wikipedia? (Score:5, Informative)
It's interesting to read this FAQ [eol.org] from the Encyclopedia of Life:
They don't mention WikiSpecies directly, but would have to be aware of it with the Wikimedia Foundation on board. It will be interesting to see what license will the EoL be using and will it be WikiSpecies (GNUFDL) compatible? Hopefully the Wikimedia Foundation will give some good advice.
Given that a stated aim of the EoL is to get lots of people involved and be a cooperative effort, a copyleft license might promote cooperation. Perhaps it would be worth a few Slashdotters politely contacting the EoL [eol.org] and suggesting that copyleft would be a good thing for the EoL?
Already being done (Score:3, Informative)
Check out the sample pages (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Storytime (Score:3, Informative)
Except the Encyclopedia of Life will be a catalogue, not an identification key.
A catalogue simply records that a species exists and is usually organised by scientific name. You can't find something unless you know its full name, or are prepared to flick through and compare your find with 1.8 million entries.
An identification key on the other hand is organised to answer the question "What is that?", a bit like trying to guess what animal someone is thinking of by asking them questions. A key allows you to specify an increasing list of characteristics and answers with a decreasing list of possible species. Here's an example key [ex.ac.uk] for a small number of bugs.
Re:Super Project? Definitely (Score:2, Informative)
Because in the past the natural world was vast and largely undisturbed, it acted as a buffer that insulated us from the kinds of changes in biodiversity we will see in the future. We have in many ways already spent this patrimony and our future as a species is now far less certain. We tend to underestimate the damage that billions of humans operating mostly in total ignorance have on the subtle creations and interactions that it has taken 2.5 billion years of earth history to produce. We are talking about myriads of interactions that without the some type of electronic network, we have no hope of understanding in the time frames necessary to make fundamental decisions about future human welfare. Whether the network is wireless or still largely nailed to the www 10 years into the future is hardly material compared to the question of whether or not we will be able to put this information grid in place in time for it to make a difference for humanity's future.
My concern (as a practicing fish taxonomist) is whether the task of constructing the "database" may, like so many of these kinds of projects before, dry up or divert resources critically needed for experts to simply learn how to identify many of the organisms and properly name them. Organisms don't come with ID tags and while one can use "molecular markers", one has to establish a map between the markers and the whole organisms being identified. A molecular marker, will not create an isomorphism between usage of a name in the previous literature, without the ability to assess the validity of the identification at each step used. This requires expert identification. This problem is compounded by the fact that most organisms actually have had multiple names that have been inconsistently used to discuss varying aspects of their biology. Sadly, the human expertise needed to make identifications is very small. The problem is not that one can not make an ID. The problem is establishing a scientific basis to know whether the ID is accurate and then consistently applying it as one interprets previous usage of names. At each stage of the compilation process the ID's have to correspond or one is doing little more than creating a giant "mash" in which multiple species are being confused, with respect to this or that bit of information. A project such as this tends to gloss over the practical difficulties by indicating that it will be "working with the experts", without precisely saying how.
A critical element is how will such experts be supported going forward so that they can afford to participate in a meaningful, sustainable way. Sadly, big projects have a way of diverting critical resources toward on-line compilations that are often impressive to the layperson, but full of inaccuracies that are apparent only to an expert. Its not clear what institutional mechanisms are in place for some form of distributed, "self-correction" or who will decide what and how editorial (taxonomic?) decisions will ultimately
Re:Isn't it already a part of Wikipedia? (Score:2, Informative)
BugGuide.net (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Isn't it already a part of Wikipedia? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.itis.gov/index.html [itis.gov]