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The Naturalist

The Naturalist. Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History. The Naturalist. Species/taxon information system for citizen scientists, school children, students, general public, decision makers Give an overview of Baltoscandian biodiversity data

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The Naturalist

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  1. The Naturalist Fredrik Ronquist Swedish Museum of Natural History

  2. The Naturalist • Species/taxon information system for citizen scientists, school children, students, general public, decision makers • Give an overview of Baltoscandian biodiversity data • Providing help in learning, exploring and identifying biodiversity • Entry point into more advanced resources • Improve quality of citizen-science biodiversity observations • Available in four languages (English, Estonian, Finnish, Swedish) • Includes all species occurring in the Nordic-Baltic region • Core is structured text and carefully chosen multimedia • Texts and media content follow international standard (SPM): • exchange content with neighboring countries • offer content to external projects, e.g. Encyclopedia of Life • Dynamically generated content: • integrated Nordic-Baltic distribution maps • links to biodiversity data systems in all countries in the region • links to biodiversity reporting systems in the region • maps and links presented even when text and media are missing

  3. The Naturalist (cont’d) • Content from all partners, including: • Orthoptera (grasshoppers) • Odonata (dragonflies) • Coleoptera (beetles) • Fresh water bivalves • Invasive species • Vascular plants • Fossils (in linked system Paleobiodiversity in Baltoscandia) • In numbers: • Complete text and multimedia for about 4,000 species (7 % of flora and fauna) • Baltoscandian maps for 30,000 species based on 50 M data records (50 % of flora and fauna) • At least name, classification and links for 55,000 species (90 % of flora and fauna) • Infrastructure work draws from a number of existing projects, including: • Estonian NATARC (Natural history archives and information network) • Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility • Swedish Lifewatch • DINA-Specify open collection software consortium (http://www.dina-project.net)

  4. Modular approach makes distributed development efficient External system users External system taxon pages Users Sthlm ? SPM Tartu Sthlm/Helsinki Other partners Taxon pages Multimedia repository Sthlm Map protocol Taxon occurrence data warehouse OAI-PMH/BDIP TCS/BDIP Literature and references Helsinki Taxonomy, vernacular names, taxon concepts Tartu ? DwC/BDIP SE EE FI Tartu Biodiversity data providers

  5. Nationalnyckeln • National popular-science biodiversity encyclopedia in Swedish • Produced by Artdatabanken (Swedish Species Information Centre in Uppsala) as part of the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative • 15 volumes published in ten years, covering 2 600 species • Book publication will be replaced by digital keys integrated with Artportalen (the Species Gateway) and taxon information in Naturforskaren

  6. Strengths of The Naturalist • Cost efficient: • Only texts and media have to be uploaded manually • Content can be exchanged between neighboring countries, texts possibly auto-translated • Less than 20 % of cost of book production per species (Nationalnyckeln) • Better navigation than book presentations: • Simple search from everywhere • Links to look-alikes, host plants etc • Links to taxa from identification keys • Dynamic maps • Always up to date • User can interact with the maps • ... but limited by data quality (historical data still lacking; potential problems like uncertain data points and reporting bias not accounted for) • Better entry into other web resources • Automatically generated links directly to appropriate species/higher taxon • Customized links for each organism group, each country

  7. Strengths of The Naturalist • Better identification and learning help, generated automatically • Comparative ‘plates’ of media for underlying taxa • User-based comparison based on ‘shopping cart’ • User-generated quizzes • Report observations directly from the system • Automatic linking of terms in descriptions to definitions (ontologies) • Puts Baltoscandia at the forefront in Europe (and the world) with respect to citizen-science platforms • Benefits to society: • Increased environmental awareness • Improved life quality • Engaged citizens • Better informed decision makers • Better understanding of the transboundary nature of biodiversity (and of human culture and science...)

  8. The Naturalist (Naturforskaren) http://naturforskaren.se

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