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Biodiversity Informatics

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Ecological Informatics

Abstract

Biodiversity informatics, the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity data, is rooted in physical objects and nomenclatural codes. Through two user stories, one from wildlife conservation and another from agriculture, we demonstrate the importance and process of biodiversity informatics. We discuss the importance and integration of taxonomic names, identification tools, species distributions, phylogenetic trees, traits, associations, the literature, ontologies, controlled vocabularies, standards, and genomics. Despite the plethora of resources, a seamless, biodiversity question and answer engine is still out of reach. The largest impediment to our user stories is the lack of cross-disciplinary infrastructure and the digitized and standardized data to support services. Satisfying our user stories will require additional investment in infrastructure and data that will be a challenge to manage and sustain. This chapter discusses the basic biodiversity informatics concepts that are at the heart of our user stories, and will be the basis of the user stories of the future as society rushes to cope with global environmental change.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD, USA

    Cynthia S. Parr

  2. Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship, Monclair, NJ, USA

    Anne E. Thessen

  3. The Data Detektiv, Waltham, MA, USA

    Anne E. Thessen

Authors
  1. Cynthia S. Parr
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  2. Anne E. Thessen
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Correspondence to Cynthia S. Parr .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Friedrich Recknagel

  2. College of University Libraries, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

    William K. Michener

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Parr, C.S., Thessen, A.E. (2018). Biodiversity Informatics. In: Recknagel, F., Michener, W. (eds) Ecological Informatics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59928-1_17

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