From Small to Big

1
From Small to Big

• Gail Kampmeier
• Illinois Natural History Survey
• University of Illinois
• gkamp_at_illinois.edu

2
How to Capitalize on Small Contributions to the
Big Dreams of Sharing Biodiversity Information
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
Small Contributions
3
Low-Hanging Fruit

• Amidst the grand initiatives prospects of
  quickly easily gathering data from the big
  players and data providers, the needs of
  individual and small group contributors of
  biodiversity information have been neglected.

4
Beyond the Low-Hanging Fruit

• Small contributors represent
• Taxon specialists
• high quality data from current revisions
• Producers of agricultural datasets
• Longterm purpose driven studies, but often a
  mixture of observations voucher specimens
• Often ignored when thinking about "biodiversity"
• Compilers of geographically-based floral faunal
  inventories
• Many museum collections with lots of specimens
  little support to digitize them
• Once collections have an online presence, there
  is a greater chance of improving the collection
  through loans.

5
The Harvest

• Rich content that could be used for a variety of
  high quality analyses from the local to the
  global levels
• Contributing towards informed decisions for
  sustainable use of our biotic resources
• Consequences of climate change
• Predicting threatened endangered species
• Predicting outbreaks of pests invasions of new
  species

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Promise for the Taxonomist

• Mapping distributions
• Aid in producing monographs
• Planning targeted expeditions
• Hypothesis testing
• Distributions
• Taxa - expectations
• Ecosystems - changes in composition over time
• Phylogenies

7
Diptera Biodiversity Synthesis Center Meeting
Survey

• 19/24 have specimen databases
• 13/24 have Diptera specimen databases
• 4/24 serve data to GBIF (now 5!)
• Many who do not serve data to GBIF hope to do so
  in the future, but most did not have a timeline
  or it was dependent upon their institutions.

8
Cultural Differences

• Taxonomy is not a service culture but a
  hypothesis-driven science
• Taxonomists do identifications as a service, but
  this is not a taxonomist's reason for being
• Sharing is not a top priority
• Although strong incentives exist for sharing in
  grant proposal justification, professional
  penalties for delivering information prematurely
  or spending too much time on identifications can
  outweigh the incentives
• Fewer fewer positions for taxonomists available

9
Sharing is Good

• Need to help support those with limited IT
  (information technology) resources
• Need to work together so that information is
  entered once for reuse/sharing elsewhere
• Biodiversity Information Standards developed by
  TDWG
• Cultivate a culture of sharing of data for the
  common good
• Taxonomic discipline
• Society

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What this Symposium Addresses

• How to mobilize content of smaller providers

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What this Symposium Addresses

• Challenges for infrastructure development
  grassroots participation in global efforts

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Be thinking about

• What innovative ways can we envision for
  encouraging more contributions from the yet
  untasted fruit at the top of the tree?