The Basics of Biodiversity Informatics
Biodiversity informatics, an emerging field, is the study of information related to the science of biodiversity and linking this information with other databases that may be geospatial, biological, and non-biological. Biodiversity informatics can refer to the creation of information related to biological diversity, as well as the analysis and understanding of this information. Information management tools are used in biodiversity informatics to manage all data. Biodiversity informatics databases may include information relating to an organism or organism related information such as distribution, conservation data, natural history, and molecular information. The goal of biodiversity informatics is to capture information related to biodiversity, and to analyze, provide, and store this data.
Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is the variation of lifeforms, including flora and fauna, on the planet. Biodiversity can be examined within a specific ecological region or biome. An important aspect of biodiversity informatics is to synthesize and improve protective measures that will improve or safeguard the biodiversity of a region.
The University of Michigan describes biodiversity informatics, or BDI, as an emerging interdisciplinary science that uses information technology tools to make information about biodiversity and ecosystems available for scientific researchers and for society in general. Biodiversity informatics can be seen as driven by a combination of factors, including the issue of biodiversity and ecosystems, the data and organization of data, and the tools and methods used to understand the data.
Biodiversity informatics is often at the organism level, focusing on individual organisms and populations, but may also be at the molecular level. The Human Genome Project is a famous example of a biodiversity informatics research project. This project works at the molecular level and provides information that may be shared and used across a number of disciplines. Biodiversity informatics is relevant and useful to many fields, including behavioral sciences, evolutionary biology, population biology, molecular biology, and others. Standards have been created and are still being developed for the formal exchange of biodiversity informatics data across the world and protocols for methods of data integration and management.
Biodiversity Informatics Resources That You Can Use
The following resources are web sites that include databases of biodiversity informatics terms, journal articles, and information on advances in the field of biodiversity informatics.
http://jbi.nhm.ku.edu/index.php/jbi. This link takes you to an electronic journal that focuses on the field of biodiversity informatics. Issues of the journal can be browsed going back to the year 2003, and you can search by author, title, or issue number.
http://circa.gbif.net (PDF) Here is an article titled Biodiversity Informatics: The Challenge of Rapid Development, Large Databases, and Complex Data.
http://www.calacademy.org This article gives a thorough overview of biodiversity informatics, focusing on taxonomy information. A number of links to resources and biodiversity informatics projects is also provided.
http://www.findarticles.com This article provides a comparison of biodiversity informatics and neuroinformatics.
http://www.nscalliance.org/bioinformatics/glossary.asp This web site provides a glossary of terms related to biodiversity informatics. This is a great resource to familiarize yourself with the field of biodiversity informatics, or to clear up some confusion with a term or acronym you may have encountered in relation to biodiversity informatics. For example, at this web site you can discover that BCIS refers to the Biodiversity Conservation Information System, a global partnership of conservation organizations that use Internet technology to provide access to the most current knowledge about biodiversity.
http://specifysoftware.org/Informatics. This link will take you to the Biodiversity Information Center Informatics with the University of Kansas Natural History Museum , where you can learn projects that link some of the world's natural history collections into virtual databases.
This emerging field is that will certainly be something that becomes more intriguing and applicable in the future.
原文链接：http://www.virtualinformatics.com/content/Biodiversity_informatics.htm