Scientists announce major global collaboration to create online 'macroscopic observatory' of Earth's biodiversity

Biodiversity information, innovative internet architecture being fused to create seamless, global view of life

Wanted (soon): observations from environment-minded citizens that will allow science to study biodiversity at a planetary level in a massive, comprehensive virtual observatory of historic importance.

The online information system for life on Earth, now under construction, will take its place alongside the global network that records earthquakes, or the world meteorology data network that pools information to predict the weather.

The global scientific collaboration to construct a virtual observatory for the unprecedented study and monitoring of life in an integrative way will be announced by some 500 biology and technology experts from 50 countries, meeting for the first time in London June 1 to 3.

Says conference organizer James Edwards, Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life, based at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC: "We are creating a virtual observatory for world biodiversity, where environmental observations, specimen data, experimental results, and sophisticated modeling can be done across all levels of biodiversity -- from genes to ecosystems."

"Information about the biology and distribution of Earth's species is enormously important to science and our quality of life. And the impact of that information increases tremendously when it is connected and made easily accessible online to all."

The integrated global knowledge base being created will also function as a high-tech "field guide" for the 21st Century, Dr. Edwards explains, allowing citizen users to click seamlessly from images of a plant or animal specimen, to information about its species and genetic code, to maps of its range and more.

Interested in the forest on your favourite mountain trail? You'll soon be able to start with an online satellite image, then click to obtain the wanted information – from the forests' tree species, the shapes of each tree's leaves and the color of its flowers, the insects that feed on the flower, to the DNA of microbes that live in the insects.

Or start small and move up. Found a strange insect in your garden? Online identification guides, digital images and maps, and global databases will help puzzle out the species name, where it came from and whether it's a harmful invasive species.

Then join tens of thousands of users who report their observations and build the global database – an army of citizen scientists who help reveal and verify planetary changes such as the density and area of forest cover or the time plants flower locally.

What may sound like a Star Trek fantasy in fact is a high-tech tool within reach, with many components already in place.