Together technology and networking have enabled an encyclopedia of life that was launched last week to catalogue every one of the 1.8 million known species on earth. Beginning with 30,000 species uploaded last Tuesday, the site will evolve with the cooperation of scientists and people into a database to become a useful resource. The mega initiative will help to comprehend and preserve the biodiversity of life on earth. The content drawn from several sources is authenticated by scientists using software tools that will mine scientific literature for regular updates. From general information for the interested layman, the site goes into in-depth details with the help of photos, video, scientific references, maps and text of 25 species ranging from the tomato to the peregrine falcon. Natural history libraries the world over are scanning their extensive literature to provide additional information on several listed species. As an interactive site, it invites comments and suggestions.
Having already generated tremendous interest, the website logged 11.5 million hits the day it was launched and eventually their computers crashed. The idea was first formulated by reputed thinker of this century, E O Wilson in an essay in 2003. A global effort that will be a global resource, the $12.5 million project is funded by the MacArthur and Sloan Foundations.
Efforts have hitherto been restricted to species on the brink of extinction, or in species/subject specific works. As the developers acknowledge, this is a task that relies heavily on technology and would not have been possible even five years ago. But as is evident with the world shrinking daily into a compact networked global village, access to information is easier than before. Such an immense work has not been attempted and will not be easy either. But with the available software tools today, the job is not impossible.
Standing as the planet does on the brink of a tipping point, thanks to global warming, a critical concern is that several species may bid adieu forever unless something is done. The encyclopedia by bringing together various facts on diverse species will help scientists understand the inter-dependence of life in its many forms and the role of biodiversity with greater clarity. Significantly the scientific initiative signals a trend towards globalisation of knowledge which is accessible to anyone anywhere at the click of the keyboard. Small steps towards larger goals remind us more than anything else that we belong to one planet. Boundaries, nationalities, races, classes and languages become insignificant trivia on such a map.
