May 31 - June 3, 2009
What's this all about?
Every species has a geographic distribution, and these are changing rapidly due to climate change and other factors. In fact, the environment is changing faster than professional scientists can monitor it, and the only way to understand this response is to recruit amateurs to make and report observations. "Citizen science" has a long history in biology, but, in many ways, it is now crucial to both science and conservation.We are trying to demonstrate the concept of a "global human sensor net" as part of the eBiosphere informatics challenge. Wildlife observations will come in from around the world, and we will mine them for species of interest (invasive, threatened, etc.) as well as anomalies (e.g. species out of their known range.) Whenever it makes sense, we will drill down on observations to see what relevant related data (e.g. genomic, behavioral, etc.) already exists in our knowledge base. Updates will be flashed on large displays in the conference center over the 3 days of the meeting.
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