[Taxacom] Occurrence data...

[Walker, Ken]

> Well, it gets back to my favourite question about biodiversity data aggregation: who is going to use the data, and for what purposes?


I do sometimes get tetchy when people want pre-defined and listed uses of data.

I remember once a visit from our Auditor Generals' Office who asked me why do we keep a drawer of insects if it has not been used in the past 10 years?

Last week, I attended the SciColl conference held here in Melbourne and heard two interesting stories:

-       The dental calculus from skulls stored in museums has suddenly been found to be a treasure trove of bacteria that is being used to map population migrations across the Pacific and to date when diets changed.  Unfortunately, the collection managers of some museums have been so efficient that they have cleaned the teeth of the skulls they house and lost all of this data.  The use of dental calculus is relatively new only because the techniques were not previously available to utilise that data source.

-       A number of collections hold insect specimens that date back before the industrial revolution or resistance to pesticides.  Ancient DNA techniques have now transitioned these previous natural history "curiosities" into a whole new role in science.

It is amazing what people can find to do with data - the obstacle can often be people not wanting others to find ways to use their data that they had not thought of themselves.

Have a good weekend

Ken

Dr Ken Walker
Senior Curator, Entomology
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666
Melbourne  Vic 3001 Australia


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