Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853
Performing Department
ECOLOGY & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Non Technical Summary
The HerpNET community project will enable knowledge networking of biodiversity information about the world's amphibians and reptiles for science and society. Access to and use of this data are fundamental if we are to understand our biological diversity and its functional role in environmental system. The project is designed to create a network of distributed herpetological databases that builds on proven technologies and scales well.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
One of the grand challenges for the 21st century is to harness knowledge of Earth's biological diversity and how this diversity shapes the global environmental systems on which all of life depends. This knowledge is critical to science and society for managing natural resources, sustaining human health, maintaining economic stability, and improving the quality of human life. The urgency for this knowledge increases daily as the conversion of natural systems to human-managed systems accelerates the decline of biological diversity. Approximately 1.8 million species are known as a result of 300 years of the biological exploration of the planet. Another 15 to 50 million species await discovery. Documenting these species of animals and plants are about 3 billion specimens and associated research data amassed in the world's natural history museums. The specimen data include observational and experimental numeric data, text, images, sound and video. These specimens and
especially their associated biotic data provide the raw research material for studies of the global composition, identity, spatial distribution, ecology, systematics, and history of the 1.8 million species. Together, the world's natural history collections and associated data are a library of life, the sine qua non of our invaluable, and irreplaceable knowledge commodity of the world's biotas. However, our ability to engage this biodiversity information in automated systems for science and society has been severely limited. Until recently, the collections lacked a common database architecture and maintenance process, which hindered the discovery and integration of data for research and education. But in the past two years a number of projects funded by NSF and other agencies (KDI-Knowledge Networking of Biodiversity Information; MaNIS; FishNet) are establishing distributed Internet-based information systems for accessing, integrating, and conducting predictive modeling on
specimen-based biodiversity information. An estimated 4.7 million herpetological specimens are housed in North American biocollections of which 90 percent are databased on about 18 different software platforms. Currently, it is impossible to access, retrieve, and integrate data from across these collections for biodiversity. A third of North American herpetological specimens and their data are housed in small collections and frequently overlooked. A series of landmark reports by national and international agencies has already established the rationale that HerpNET, MaNIS and their kin are fundamental to national and global biodiversity research, education and solutions. In fact, the Access America report (Gore, 1997) of the National Performance Review endorsed the creation of an electronic national natural history museum and a cooperative effort to create a distributed electronic database on the biological diversity of the U.S. as represented in our natural history museum
collections.
Project Methods
The mission of the HerpNET project is to bring 300 years of accumulated knowledge of the diversity of amphibians and reptiles on Earth into currency for science and society. Addressing this challenge involves three thrust areas: Advancing technology by deploying a standards-based informatics and collaboration architecture. Enabling collaborative research by using the technology and collaboration framework to develop and deploy HerpNET, a powerful distributed community information network. Collaboration will allow studies of magnitude and impact that was not previously possible. Fostering the education of the next generation of biodiversity informatics scientists, and providing the public with the results of knowledge networking of herpetological biodiversity information. It will bring together promising young scientists at 36 institutions and offer them the opportunity for cross training in information technology, biocollections and biodiversity science, and
environmental issues in their broadest context. When complete, HerpNET will provide people worldwide with ready access to information about international herpetological holdings in North American institutions, essentially repatriating these data to their source countries. The global informatics community will share the data, data standards, installation and management software, and documentation developed for HerpNET for further research and applications. Why HerpNET and why now? Amphibians and reptiles are the environment's canaries in the coalmine. Amphibians and reptiles are large, diverse, and ubiquitous vertebrate groups containing about 15,710 described species. They represent nearly 55 percent of all tetra pods and 25 percent of all vertebrates, and occur globally in marine and freshwater habitats and on all landmasses except Antarctica. Because most amphibians are closely tied to water as adults and larvae, they are especially sensitive indicators of environmental quality and
change. Hence, the declines of many amphibian populations and outright disappearance of others around the world are of urgent concern (Houlahan et al., 2000). The possible biological consequences are significant. Both groups are critical members of community ecosystems and their presence or absence will affect other members of communities, including humans. Because they are popular laboratory animals and household pets, many amphibians and reptiles have been introduced in areas where they do not occur naturally, with some alarming consequences.