National Biological

Information Infrastructure (NBII):

Biodiversity Challenges

&

Research Needs

September 2004

Ecoinformatics Working Group

Biodiversity Challenges:• Complexity of Species & Ecosystems

– Millions of Species– Complex interaction within Ecosystems

• Sociologically with respect to communication & coordination among broad community– Multiple organizations involved– Citizen captures data– Sensitive data and sharing

• Data & research performed for specific interest/area – Standards not the same– Difficult to regionalize or nationalize

Bioinformatics Research Needs:• Acquisition and Conversion of Data and Metadata

– Modernizing the Biological Library– Digitizing the Biological Legacy– Multi-dimensional Observation and Recording– Mobile Computing– Taxonomic Freedom

• Analysis and Synthesis of Data and Metadata– Comparing Across Scales– Modeling methods & dissemination – Taxonomic Retooling– Making Data Usable– Improved Metadata processes – Need for Speed and Accuracy

• Dissemination of Data and Metadata– Visualization– Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Communication– Data Management Guidelines

• As• F

Specific Research Related to Terminology Needs:

• Multi-lingual thesaurus, retrieval, translation issues• Improved Geo-referencing, localized names, capabilities• Resolving multiple taxonomies and improving availability • Security and providing access to distributed/remote users• Addressing multiple data types and provider formats

seamlessly, quickly, and in a usable display for various types of users

• Multiple scale issues with data integration (large numbers, differing scale/scope, etc)

NBII & NSF Partnership Efforts

• Current Activities (cont’d)– NBII is partnering with NSF & others to sponsor a 2nd BDEI

Workshop in December 2004• Focus of this BDEI workshop is biodiversity and

ecosystem informatics for decision making• Mission is to identify the key customers (i.e. decision

makers) of ecoinformatic products and to articulate their information needs

• Additional workshop partners include U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration, among others

• Workshop findings will provide impetus for a subsequent “Dear Colleague” proposal call by NSF in Spring 2005 followed by award announcements by August 2005