Biodiversity analysis in the digital era

John La Salle; Kristen J Williams; Craig Moritz

doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0337

Biodiversity analysis in the digital era

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2016 Sep 5;371(1702):20150337. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0337.

Authors

John La Salle¹, Kristen J Williams², Craig Moritz³

Affiliations

¹ Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO National Research Collections Australia, GPO Box 1700, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia john.lasalle@csiro.au.
² Land and Water, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), GPO Box 1600, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia.
³ Centre for Biodiversity Analysis and Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Acton ACT 2601, Australia.

Abstract

This paper explores what the virtual biodiversity e-infrastructure will look like as it takes advantage of advances in 'Big Data' biodiversity informatics and e-research infrastructure, which allow integration of various taxon-level data types (genome, morphology, distribution and species interactions) within a phylogenetic and environmental framework. By overcoming the data scaling problem in ecology, this integrative framework will provide richer information and fast learning to enable a deeper understanding of biodiversity evolution and dynamics in a rapidly changing world. The Atlas of Living Australia is used as one example of the advantages of progressing towards this future. Living in this future will require the adoption of new ways of integrating scientific knowledge into societal decision making.This article is part of the themed issue 'From DNA barcodes to biomes'.

Keywords: biodiversity informatics; biogeography; e-research infrastructure; environment; evolution.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Australia
Biodiversity*
Classification / methods*
Computational Biology*
DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic*
Phylogeny