Biodiversity, the Tree of Life, and Science Communication
Biodiversity, the Tree of Life, and Science Communication
复制标题
生物多样性、生命之树和科学传播
DOI：
10.1007/978-3-319-93145-6_3
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
6.8
通讯作者：
Yan Wong
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Rosindell;Yan Wong
在任何领域组织人类知识的通常方法是发明一种直观的、通常是分层的分类系统。也许在自然史上是独一无二的，与其说人类发明了这样一个系统，不如说人类发现了这样一个系统：生命之树。现在这个标志性的物体不仅在生物多样性研究方面，而且在保护和科学传播方面都有实用价值。例如，参与保护需要强调生物多样性的规模和我们可能失去的东西；这可以通过向人们展示完整的生命之树来非常有效地传达。在这里，我们将讨论向广大读者介绍完整的生命之树所面临的挑战。第一个挑战与数据管理有关，由于缺乏一个普遍认可的物种名称数据库，数据管理受到了损害。不同的物种可以有相同的名字，不同的名字可以指相同的物种，拼写错误很普遍。第二个挑战是树的可视化。虽然许多可视化方法已经存在，但很少有能够代表完整的生命之树。我们认为，将任何方法放大到显示整个生命之树所必需的程度，必然会暴露出对基础数据的每个方面给予突出地位的不可避免的权衡。例如，在展示进化枝时，是否应该优先考虑拓扑结构或物种丰富度，这些进化枝包含的物种比例微不足道，但在树的拓扑结构中占据着突出的位置？最后，我们对生命之树在科学传播中的应用前景表示乐观。
The usual approach to organising human knowledge in any field is to invent an intuitive, often hierarchical system of classification. Perhaps uniquely to natural history, humans did not so much invent such a system as discover one: the tree of life. This now iconic object has utility, not only in biodiversity research but also in conservation and science communication. For example, engagement in conservation requires highlighting the scale of biodiversity and what we stand to lose; this can be communicated very effectively by showing people the complete tree of life. Here we discuss the challenges involved in making the complete tree of life accessible to a broad audience. The first challenge relates to data curation, which is marred by the lack of a universally recognised database of species names. Different species can have the same name, different names can refer to the same species, and spelling errors are rife. The second challenge is tree visualisation. While many visualisation methods already exist, few are able to represent the complete tree of life. We argue that scaling up any method to the extent necessary for showing the whole tree of life is bound to expose inescapable trade-offs in the prominence given to each aspect of the underlying data. For example, should topology or species richness be prioritised when displaying clades that contain an insignificant proportion of species but which occupy a prominent position in the tree topology? We conclude with an optimistic outlook for using the tree of life in science communication.
DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1423041112
发表时间：
2015-10-13
影响因子：
11.1
作者：
Hinchliff, Cody E.;Smith, Stephen A.;Cranston, Karen A.
通讯作者：
Cranston, Karen A.