[Taxacom] Scope of current Biodiversity Informatics initiatives

[Tony.Rees at csiro.au]

Stephen,

OK, I have topped up the coffers with a few new cents (for better or worse), so here goes.

You write:

<snip>

Whenever I ask a straight question, nobody answers it, but here I go again:

what does GBIF have to offer that is different to what CoL has to offer that is different to what EoL has to offer, etc? Is what they offer worth the cost? In a world of rapidly disappearing biodiversity (in some parts, anyway), isn't it more sensible to "describe it before it is gone" as a priority? Wikispecies is there to integrate it all, not perfectly, but cheaply ...

</snip>

Actually you ask three questions. Here is perhaps the briefest possible answer to the first one.

- CoL (Catalogue of Life) integrates names data at the species level from multiple "authoritative" sources into a single catalogue that can be used by other initiatives, or interrogated by humans over the web (or also offline via CD-ROM). By its own estimates it is around 60% complete at this time, for extant taxa only.

- GBIF integrates species occurrence data (in the main) from multiple providers, and where possible, uses the CoL Catalogue as a means to organise and navigate through its data where such information is available in CoL; again its clients include humans over the web, and machine-level users i.e. other initiatives that can connect remotely to GBIF data services.

- EOL aspires to provide summary information about species attributes, again integrated from many sources, including maps/occurrence data from GBIF but also descriptive information, images, and more, and also uses the CoL Catalogue as a means to organise and navigate through its data where possible.

The main aim is to avoid redundant data entry/capture, i.e. "enter once, use many times", to transfer information between the systems by as automated means as possible, and for each to concentrate on its specialist area of interest and expertise.

There are also related, but by no means identical, other major initiatives such as GNA and ZooBank. GNA aims to handle all published names (if you like, a mix of "authorized" and "non-authorized but out there anyway" names), using CoL as one contributory source but by no means the only one; ZooBank is a prototype registry of newly published animal names, possibly also covering already published ones retrospectively, which can once again be used by humans or machine readable to provide unique identifiers and associated attributes for names, and the publication instances by which names are made available.

Each is in a varying degree of completeness to date, so of course it is possible to point to taxa or information that is missing from the relevant slots in any initiative; however in general these are hoped to be addressed (by as efficient means as available, or can be devised) as the activities proceed.

Others will obviously be in a clearer position to elaborate than myself, should you have further specific questions related to particular initiatives and the manner of data transfer between them, and either real or perceived overlap. Of course the interested person can also discover much relevant information via the home pages of the relevant initiatives.

Hope this helps,

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees
Manager, Divisional Data Centre,
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research,
GPO Box 1538,
Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Ph: 0362 325318 (Int: +61 362 325318)
Fax: 0362 325000 (Int: +61 362 325000)
e-mail: Tony.Rees at csiro.au
Manager, OBIS Australia regional node, http://www.obis.org.au/ 
Biodiversity informatics research activities: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/biodiversity.htm
Personal info: http://www.fishbase.org/collaborators/collaboratorsummary.cfm?id=1566


-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
Sent: Tuesday, 16 February 2010 11:18 AM
To: Roderic Page
Cc: TAXACOM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] In defense of DOIs

>It's not "bioinformatics people" who drove the adoption of DOIs, it was publishers looking for a way to increase the value of their content through linking. Links mean greater traffic (e.g., through citations), as well as an improved experience for the reader (e.g. links that don't break)

Well, I don't know the history, but now publishers have a free alternative for greater traffic through linking - wasn't it you who pointed out a while ago that Zootaxa has many thousands of citations (and links) on Wikispecies/-pedia, all at no cost to them? Direct links to Zootaxa very rarely break.

>Viewing everything in terms of taxonomy runs the risk of missing the bigger picture
I agree, but it is unclear what the "bigger picture" is? Industries that manipulate primary information have their place (and Zoological Record is a particularly useful one IMO), but one could argue that there is simply far too much of that sort of thing going on in the world today...

Whenever I ask a straight question, nobody answers it, but here I go again:

what does GBIF have to offer that is different to what CoL has to offer that is different to what EoL has to offer, etc? Is what they offer worth the cost? In a world of rapidly disappearing biodiversity (in some parts, anyway), isn't it more sensible to "describe it before it is gone" as a priority? Wikispecies is there to integrate it all, not perfectly, but cheaply ...