Collaborative Research: ABI Development: Advancing Map of Life's Impact and Capacity for Sharing, Integrating, and Using Global Spatial Biodiversity Knowledge

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An award is made to Yale University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Cornell University to advance content provision and development of the existing prototype Map of Life platform. Knowledge about the geographic occurrence of species is at the heart of much of ecology, evolution and conservation, and of tremendous societal importance. While digital species distribution products exist, they remain un-integrated and cannot serve critical societal needs. The Map of Life platform was developed to begin to solve this need. A key goal of this project is to use novel approaches to mobilize and integrate diverse types of data such that their collective strengths overcome individual weaknesses. Specifically, this project will combine, on a single website, a variety of distribution data types from many different sources, range products that integrate these, deductively and inductively modeled predictions, and reports about the spatial and environmental knowledgebase for species. When completed, users from across a broad spectrum, from researchers with published data to citizen scientists, will be able to upload data, edit input or output and directly improve or comment on maps, iteratively leading to improved species distribution knowledge. Users will be able to directly query or download any redistributable content. Map of Life will thus facilitate a dramatically improved and rigorous accounting of the spatial context of species in science and will likely benefit scientists across the biological, environmental and social sciences.Given that species range maps are one of the most commonly used and familiar information products in biology, the potential broader impacts and benefits of Map of Life to society are remarkable. Species distribution knowledge ties to one of the greatest challenges of our time: explaining the links between biodiversity, ecosystems and human health, and how ongoing global environmental changes are impacting our natural heritage and capital. Opportunity abounds for strong educational uses of the Map of Life infrastructure. An exciting step will be the production of video tutorials covering how Map of Life works and how it can serve an important role in biodiversity knowledge creation, along with explaining core concepts about species ranges, biodiversity, and how to measure its change. Such videos are scalable means to reach large audiences and will be coordinated through the PIs and their institutional outreach programs. More information about this project can be found at: www.mappinglife.org.