The HerpNET Community Informatics Project: Development of a Distributed Information Network of North American Herpetological Databases (HerpNET)

HerpNET社区项目将为科学和社会提供有关世界两栖动物和爬行动物生物多样性信息的知识网络。在地球上300年的生物探索中获得的信息是巨大的。如果我们要了解我们的生物多样性及其在环境系统中的功能作用，获取和使用这些数据是至关重要的。两栖动物是环境质量和变化的特别敏感的指标。该项目旨在建立一个分布式爬行动物数据库网络，该数据库建立在成熟的技术和可扩展性良好的基础上。它还被设计为经济的实施和易于访问。HerpNET将帮助形成一个基础，在这个基础上，一个主要是描述性的科学可以变成一个预测性的科学。它将提供全球访问和共享数据、数据标准、安装和管理软件以及文件。

The HerpNET community project will enable knowledge networking of biodiversity information about the world's amphibians and reptiles for science and society. The information store is enormous, acquired during 300 years of biological exploration of the earth. Access to and use of these data are fundamental if we are to understand our biological diversity and its functional role in environmental system. Amphibians are especially sensitive indicators of environmental quality and change. The project is designed to create a network of distributed herpetological databases that builds on proven technologies and scales well. It is also designed to be economical to implement and easily accessible. HerpNET will help to form the basis on which a largely descriptive science can become a predictive one. It will provide global access and sharing of data, data standards, installation and management software and documentation.