Science Spin November 2009

Creating the 'Encyclopaedia of Life'

By Tom Kennedy

The number of known species is close to 2 million, and biologists estimate that there could be in the region of 10 million different forms of life on Earth.

The actual number of different species depends on how strictly we define the term, and while we all know the difference between a horse, a dog and a cat, it can take the keen eye of a birdwatcher to distinguish between one type of crow and another. Even so, a jackdaw is a lot different from a rook. Apart from a significant difference in size, a jackdaw is not going to become matey with a rook, or indeed any other type of crow, and this is one of the ways that scientists can tell one species from another. About thirty types of crow inhabit the world, and each of these species could be regarded as a distinct gene pool.

Seeing the magnificant Sumatran tigers prowl around in Dublin Zoo might make us appreciate just how significant those gene pool differences can be. It is thought that just about 400 or so of these animals exist in the wild.

In your own back yard or garden, we come across the other extreme where a thousand or more species could be lurking in the dirt. Compared to birds and mammals it is a lot harder to distinguish one sort of invertebrate from another, but the beetles alone, of which about five qualify as 'woodworm' make up about a quarter of all the known species.

Lots of biologists have specialised in one type of plant or animal, and some botanists have even gone to the extremes of classifying our native blackberry into a whole range of sub-species. It takes a specialist to look at species in such detail, but biologists also have to take a much broader view if we are to see life as a living, interactive, web.

COMPREHENSIVE

General works on biology have been around for some time, not least of these being Darwin's accounts of what he saw on his voyages, but until the launch of the Encyclopaedia of Life project ten years ago, there was no comprehensive description of the world's diversity available that anybody, regardless of their expertise, could dip into. Of course, without the Internet this EOL project could never have taken off.

The Encyclopaedia of Life has just celebrated two years of existence with the announcement that there are now over 150,000 pages of expert vetted content up on line. The EOL foundation has the aim of completing 1.8 million pages, one for each known species, within ten years.

This ambitious project with a council drawn from more than 25 institutions around the world, was launched with support from a number of private foundations, institutes and companies such as Adobe and Microsoft.

Information on EOL is available at no cost to everyone who cares to log in, and one of the latest developments is to develop different language versions so that the encyclopaedia becomes truly global and not just a resource for English speakers. This move also helps in the collection of information, for EOL depends on the input of expert contributors.

About 250 taxonomists and other experts are among the volunteers who help assemble images, provide data, or check the quality of content, and there are facilities on the site to submit observations and comments. One of the refinements is colour coding of images, which remain on a yellow background until authenticated by experts.

The level of collaboration, both with the public and with experts is high. For example, students from four universities, Harvard, Oregon State, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin-La-Crosse, have worked on the creation of 100 fungi pages. Students can also query experts by submitting questions.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library, as an EOL partner, had contributed links to 15 million pages from published literature, and the international Census of Marine Life project is expected to complete pages on 215,000 species by 2013.

The executive director for EOL is James Edwards, and he is based at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. The aim, he said, is to harness the eyes and collective brainpower of hundreds of thousands of users, and in many ways this project shows how on-line information has evolved. "There are literally thousands of websites dedicated to individual aspects of biodiversity," he said. "This unique collaboration between more than 100 leading international organisations is making vast amounts of information available in a common format."

TRACKING

The encyclopaedia of Life is not just a fixed list, but is interactive as was demonstrated by the tracking of an invasive moth. This moth, Cameraria ohridella, feeds on the well known horse chestnut tree, causing leaves to go brown long before they are ready to fall in autumn.

Horse chestnuts, with their distinctive white 'candles' and crop of 'conkers' are widespread throughout Europe, North America, and Asia. The moth has not yet reached Ireland, but it has been spreading rapidly since it first appeared in the Balkans twenty five years ago. Instead of being an ornament to parklands, trees, although they do not die, lose their looks.

Because the information posted on EOLs pages is being updated constantly, the progress of this destructive moth is being followed closely, and one of the suspicions is that the pest may be evolving. In some places it has been found to attack sycamore trees, which are also a prominent part of our green landscape.