Organization: The Smithsonian Institution (SI)

Project Location: Washington, DC

Web address: http://www.si.edu

Title of Grant: “e-Biosphere 09”

Grant Amount: $75,000

Principal Investigator: Dawn Mason

Organization Background:

Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazine. Most of its facilities are located in Washington, D.C., but its 19 museums, zoo, and 9 research centers include sites in New York City, Virginia, Panama, and elsewhere. It has over 136 million items in its collections.

Grant Description:

During the week of 1 June 2009, e-Biosphere 09, an international conference devoted to Biodiversity informatics, will be held in London. Biodiversity informatics brings information science and technologies to bear on the data and information generated by the study of organisms, their genes, and their interactions. This field has undergone significant growth in the last decade, creating unprecedented access to information on biological species and their role in nature. The goals of the conference are to:

• Present and discuss the extraordinary progress made in Biodiversity Informatics over the past decade
• Provide participants with demonstrations of current capabilities in this field
• Bring stakeholders together to create a roadmap for the next decade.
  

The Problem:

During the past 25 years, remote sensing, ecosystem studies, biodiversity inventories and other initiatives have assembled enormous bodies of data in computerized databases, now available through the internet. The new field of biodiversity informatics emerged, bringing together data on:

• Species, higher taxonomic units, and their geographic distributions
• Specimens preserved in museums, herbaria and other repositories
• Observations on organismal properties such as digital images and gene sequences
  

The information that is now becoming available, thanks to biodiversity informatics, is revolutionizing research in biology and is opening new approaches to managing natural resources, promoting sustainable development, and protecting biodiversity and the environment. The most exciting development in biodiversity informatics over the past 5-10 years has been the growth of interconnections among these databases. Developers of large research databases and data sharing networks are creating a seamless global web of biodiversity information, enabling a new generation of integrative research and diverse new and exciting applications.

The Solution:

This emerging field will be the subject of e-Biosphere 09: The International Conference on Biodiversity Informatics, a five-day conference in London. The conference will be divided into two segments: an open meeting to engage users and developers, followed by a smaller planning meeting. The first three days of the conference will be an open meeting at which:

• Database developers will see and discuss the emerging connectivity among databases
• Researchers will hear about and see the state of the art in biodiversity informatics
• Officials from government agencies and NGOs will learn how biodiversity informatics provides a new scientific basis for policy decisions in conservation, agriculture, sustainable development and land management.

Presentations, software demonstrations, panel discussions, and open discussions will:

• Demonstrate the latest capabilities for integrative research across diverse data types
• Highlight the discoveries that have been enabled by integrative biodiversity informatics
• Present practical applications in policy, regulation and management
• Give users and potential users of biodiversity information an opportunity to provide input to database developers and operators on their needs and priorities.

The results of the open meeting will set the stage for a smaller two-day planning meeting. Invited representatives of the most active biodiversity informatics initiatives will develop an integrative roadmap for the coming decade of work in biodiversity informatics and agree to a collaborative plan of action.

Global Impact:

It is hoped that this grant will lead to a continuing biodiversity informatics dialogue among researchers and practitioners.