EDIT WP5 Platform for Cybertaxonomy

This report describes possibilities to visualize and analyze ATBI+M data in the EDIT geoplatform tools paying special attention to inventory completeness assessment. It has been compiled by Marcin Gąsior (MIIZPAN) with a generous input from Pere Roca Ristol (CSIC), Alexander Kroupa (MFN), Patricia Mergen (RMCA) and the colleagues from the EDIT developer mailing list.

This report is based on Skype and Chatzy talks that took place on the 26^th of March 2010 as well as e-mail correspondence on the EDIT Geo developers mailing list. It was compiled by Marcin Gąsior (MIZPAN) with a generous input from Patricia Mergen (RMCA) , James Davy (RMCA), Franck Theeten (RMCA), Alexander Kroupa (MFN) and the colleagues from the EDIT developer mailing list.

This report describes the methods of inventory completeness assessment developed in the EDIT geoplatform tools and presents a spatial analysis based on ATBI data. It has been compiled by Marcin Gąsior (MIIZPAN) with a generous input from Pere Roca Ristol (CSIC), Alexander Kroupa (MFN), Patricia Mergen (RMCA) and the colleagues from the EDIT developer mailing list. The incompleteness of species inventories due to limited field sampling is considered as an important issue in many biodiversity studies.

Due to the lack of quality and incompleteness of significant part of biological information research on biodiversity can be biased. Additional surveys directed to fill in all gaps in knowledge and recover a reliable picture of the distribution for highly diverse taxa are impossible to conduct because of limited time and resources. That is why alternatives to assess the reliability and/or enhance the information currently stored in biodiversity databases are preferred

This report describes application to map inventory completeness. The main conclusions raised by report C5.35 & C5.38 are that:
1. current species distribution information is biased and insufficient for most taxonomic groups
2. modelling methods can not provide reliable and useful distribution predictions if they are based in these biased of data.”
For that reason key tools to implement were identified which allow to:
1. examine the degree of completeness of distributional information,

The EDIT mapViewer is an online toolbox for taxonomists, offering data visualisation and analysis in preparation of their publications. There are two sides to this : an online tool (the mapViewer tool), a set of REST (stateless) webservices, that can be used to integrate (certain chosen parts of) the EDIT mapViewer tool into other webpages or online tools. In version 1 of the mapViewer tool (Mapbuilder implementation ), the mapViewer and geoREST services had separate coding and development cycles, demanding double work and difficult coordination.

The EDIT mapViewer is an online toolbox for taxonomists, offering data visualisation and analysis for the preparation of their publications. Its first implementation was through the Mapbuilder Ajax framework for building web mapping clients inside a browser, with limited funtionality. In the meantime, the tool has been ported to the OpenLayers framework, as Mapbuilder is not longer supported and developed. In addition, many new functions have been developed and implemented for a true “version 2” release.

The EDIT core geoplatform services (such as the mapViewer tool) are useful largely because they are able to communicate with other services and tools on the Web. For this reason, the EDIT software component development is always modular (for easy adding of new components) and standards-compliant (for example adhering to the WMS/WFS standard for geographical data interchange). One of the richest sources of biodiversity and taxonomic data on the Web is the GBIF portal, tapping into a wealth of specimen and species occurrence observation records from institutions all over the world.

The e-conference was held in order to get a better view on the current status of the EDIT WP5.4 Geospatial Services, and to define the priorities for further implementation, in order to make them as useful as possible for the taxonomists as end users.

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This report discusses the possibilities of linking the ATBI site data to the EDIT geoplatform. It partially builds on the report C5.107 - Specification for ATBI application of EDIT geotools. ATBI+M (All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory and Monitoring) is being established under the Work Package 7 - 'Applying taxonomy to conservation'. Amongst its responsibilities , ATBI+M recognizes a need for efficient biodiversity assessment and monitoring. Currently the gathered data is stored in a simple Access database. The datasets are also available at ATBI sites.