Abstract
Science is a sequence of generating new ideas, detailed explorations, incorporation of the results into a toolbox for understanding data, and turning them into useful knowledge. One recent development has been large-scale, computer-aided management of biodiversity information. This emerging field of biodiversity informatics has been growing quickly, but without overarching scientific questions to guide its development; the result has been developments that have no connection to genuine insight and forward progress. We outline what biodiversity informatics should be, a link between diverse dimensions of organismal biology – genomics, phylogenetics, taxonomy, distributional biology, ecology, interactions, and conservation status – and describe the science progress that would result. These steps will enable a transition from ‘gee-whiz’ to fundamental science infrastructure.
Description
This is the publisher's version, which the author has permission to share. The original version may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14772001003739369
Citation
Peterson, T., Knapp, S., Guralnick, R., Soberón, J., Holder, M. 2010. The Big Questions For Biodiversity Informatics. Systematics and Biodiversity 8(2): 159-168.