Electronic Field Guides: Building Partnerships and Informatics Tools for Species Identification and Biodiversity Monitoring

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Abstract 0416835The University of Massachusetts Boston has been awarded a grant to continue and greatly expand the Electronic Field Guide (EFG) project for identification of species in the field, in the laboratory, or via the Internet. The research places special emphasis on ways to make digital images more useful in the identification process by making it easy for experts to annotate them and have those annotations travel with copies of the images around the Web. The proposed work includes significant extensions to the JPEG2000 specification for biodiversity studies as well as development and integration of advanced authoring and image annotation tools. The EFG will be enhanced to allow broader use on a variety of platforms, including handhelds. Broad use will be facilitated by the adoption of emerging community standards for descriptive data and by the extensive involvement of teachers and students in the Boston Public Schools and use by hundreds of US college students doing research at Monte Verde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica. Field Guides produced by the research will also support observations by professional scientists and informed lay observers, thereby helping researchers gather data about the occurrence of species on a wider scale than might otherwise be possible.