How to study & monitor life on Earth

Meeting

21-22 February, 2005
Washington, D.C.

Organized by the
National Biological Information Infrastructure,
Smithsonian Institution,
and
Discover Life

Formica integroides
Formica integroides
Illustration by Jessica Holland, 2004
Last updated: 3 May, 2005


Overview

Our meeting is to brainstorm a better strategy to study and monitor life on Earth.

Society needs a global network to monitor the abundance and movement of species. If we integrate our resources, we could implement a real-time system to monitor all species of concern for North America within five years; for the world, within ten. How? Let's use the power of the Web to coordinate existing efforts towards our common goals.

Discover Life, Sun Microsystems, Topozone.com, and other partners are rapidly integrating Web-based systems that enable citizens to work together on a global scale to collect and share biological knowledge in real time. By the end of this year, we will have the technology to enable citizens to identify, report, database, and map target species in North America, including most ants, trees, and terrestrial vertebrates. How can we now

  1. organize, train, and involve enough schools and other organizations to study and monitor target species at a fine-grained geographic scale that includes field sites within all U.S. counties,

  2. expand our identification tools, study protocols, and species pages to include all North American species of concern, and

  3. expand the system to include a million species and a network of fine-grained study sites around the world?
Our meeting will set in motion a planning process to involve enough experts, schools, and citizen groups to achieve these goals. We will start with presentations on existing technology, organizing large numbers of citizens, ensuring data quality, and involving developing regions. We will then break into three working groups, each focused on one of the above goals. After which, we will hear group reports, have general discussion, decide on some action items, and be enthralled by concluding remarks. On Tuesday, a small team of us will meet at the Heinz Center, hammer out details on the larger group's recommendations, and actually move things along.


Venue


General questions


1-year goals

On Monday we will focus on the larger issues of how to study and monitor species. On Tuesday we will specify the 1-year goals and means to reach them for the following three projects:


Organizers

Monday venue Ricky Sarnowski, 202-633-2663
      Security: Lawrence Chatman & Anita Montgomery; Refreshments: Restaurant Associates
Tuesday venue Laura Meyerson


Report

The meeting went well. There was general consensus to work together and move forward on the three projects listed under our 1-year goals. Rather than producing a formal report, the organizers will keep updating the pages on these projects as they progress. Thus, please see Ant Hunt!, Plants for the People, and THEM -- World Ants.


Participants

Name Institution E-mail Phone AttendedGroup
Peter Alden Nuttall Ornithological Club peteralden@aol.com 978-369-5768 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
Leeanne Alonso Conservation International l.alonso@conservation.org 202-912-1282 Monday + TuesdayInternational
Mary Ball Carson Newman College mball@cn.edu 865-471-3254 Monday + TuesdayExperts
Gordon Brown US Dept. of Interior; Nat'l Invasive Species Council A_Gordon_Brown@ios.doi.gov 202-354-1879 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
Becky Boger GLOBE rboger@globe.gov 303-497-2647 Monday + TuesdayInternational
Gladys Cotter USGS-NBII gladys_cotter@usgs.gov 703-648-4090 MondayExperts
Sam Droege Patuxent Wildlife Research Center sam_droege@usgs.gov 301-497-5840 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
Brian Fisher California Academy of Sciences bfisher@calacademy.org 415-321-8314 Monday + TuesdayInternational
Tom Garnett Smithsonian Institution GarnettT@si.edu 202-633-2238 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
Patty Gowaty University of Georgia gowaty@uga.edu 706-542-3365 MondayOutreach
Mike Irwin University of Illinois meirwin@uiuc.edu 217-333-1963 Monday + TuesdayExperts
Cahba Kingwood Sun Microsystems Cahba.Kingwood@East.sun.com
MondayOutreach
Dan Kjar Georgetown University dsk@georgetown.edu 202-687-2424 Monday + TuesdayInternational
Patricia Koleff CONABIO pkoleff@xolo.conabio.gob.mx 525-55-528-9101 MondayExperts
John Lapolla Smithsonian Institution lapolla@si.edu 202-633-1001 Monday-
Tom Lovejoy Heinz Center lovejoy@heinzctr.org 202-737-6307 MondayInternational
Chris Lyal Natural History Museum, London c.lyal@nhm.ac.uk
MondayInternational
Chuck Lydeard National Science Foundation clydeard@nsf.gov 703-292-7142 Monday + TuesdayExperts
Ed McNierney TopoZone.com ed@topozone.com 978-251-4242 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
Laura Meyerson Heinz Center meyerson@heinzctr.org 202-737-6307 Monday + TuesdayExperts
Neil Patterson Neil Patterson Productions napatterson@mindspring.com 919-933-1195 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
John Pickering University of Georgia pick@discoverlife.org 706-542-1115 Monday + TuesdayExperts
Peter Raven Missouri Botanical Garden praven@nas.edu 314-577-5111 Monday-
Lucy Rogo BioNET International l.rogo@bionet-intl.org 571-239-8798 Monday + TuesdayInternational
Gary Rosenberg Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia rosenberg@acnatsci.org 215-299-1033 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
Rusty Russell Smithsonian Institution russellr@si.edu 202-633-0943 MondayExperts
Cristian Samper Smithsonian Institution samper.cristian@nmnh.si.edu 202-633-2664 MondayExperts
Ted Schultz Smithsonian Institution schultz@onyx.si.edu 202-357-1311 MondayInternational
Annie Simpson USGS-NBII asimpson@usgs.gov 703-648-4281 Monday + TuesdayInternational
Jeffrey Sossa Smithsonian Institution sossa.jeffery@nmnh.si.edu 202-633-1001 Monday-
Mike Soukup US National Park Service Mike_Soukup@nps.gov 202-208-3884 MondayInternational
Melissa Tulig New York Botanical Garden mtulig@nybg.org 718-817-8740 Monday + TuesdayExperts
Robb Turner SAIN-NBII & SAMAB rsturner@utk.edu 865-974-4585 Monday + TuesdayOutreach
Ed Wilson Harvard University ewilson@eob.harvard.edu 617-495-2315 MondayOutreach
Kay Yatskievych Missouri Botanical Garden kay.yatskievych@mobot.org 314-577-9524 Monday + TuesdayExperts

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